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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, saying they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to help young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of play, art, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few schools still erect in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every facet of our existence: protection, residences, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now lost – children who spoke of becoming physicians, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

All over the region, teachers, helpers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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