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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve literature, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of amusement, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest displaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for families running from the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every part of our existence: safety, homes, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I hear from a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Across Gaza, educators, aid workers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several