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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, stating they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, educational facilities and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of play, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest substituted apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every facet of our lives: security, homes, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now dead – youth who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the chaos. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, instructors, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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