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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to help local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and relatives. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth are entitled to literature, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of play, art, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity displaced apprehension. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now dead – youth who mentioned becoming medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, volunteers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a mother of {three|several