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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my tent and question if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I lost my family member, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth deserve texts, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for families escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every part of our existence: security, residences, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now dead – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, helpers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several