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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 real classroom. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Other times, I visit a small tent where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, learning environments and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of play, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few educational facilities left standing in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every part of our lives: safety, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who talked about aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access permits, I hear from a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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