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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve literature, schools and safety. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every part of our existence: protection, homes, schools, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – minors who mentioned becoming medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “How are you, instructor?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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