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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth deserve books, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools still erect in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every part of our lives: security, homes, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – youth who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with starvation, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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