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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, 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 deserve literature, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity displaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our existence: security, homes, educational centers, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now dead – children who mentioned becoming medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with hunger, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They write questioning: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, teachers, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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