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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my tent and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I attend a tiny space where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and families. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, 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 world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit books, learning environments and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of play, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as interest displaced fear. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every part of our existence: safety, residences, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now deceased – youth who mentioned becoming physicians, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

All over this territory, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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