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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, saying 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 aspired to becoming a teacher to help young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve texts, educational facilities and security. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a zone of play, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives running from the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our lives: protection, residences, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – children who talked about aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure malnutrition, eviction 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 questioning: “How are you, educator?” We share brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several