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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That morning, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth merit books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for families escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions left standing in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every part of our reality: safety, residences, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – youth who spoke of dreaming of physicians, painters, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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