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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I visit a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to texts, learning environments and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity displaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for households running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every facet of our existence: safety, homes, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who mentioned dreaming of physicians, painters, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several