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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and question if my companions see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, 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 feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, schools and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few schools still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our existence: security, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now lost – children who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet allows, I hear from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We share brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, instructors, volunteers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several