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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Other times, I go to a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. The youth deserve books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

An educator, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every facet of our existence: safety, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my learners are now lost – youth who mentioned becoming medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We share brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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