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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, saying they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve books, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. 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, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always thought learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a zone of recreation, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions left standing in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now dead – youth who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several