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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to help young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. Other times, I attend a tiny space where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, learning environments and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every part of our existence: safety, homes, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, painters, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who survive experience hunger, eviction and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Many of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several