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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We wait in line for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the stars through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, saying they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and families. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a space of amusement, art, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest substituted apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no schools left standing in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our existence: safety, homes, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – youth who talked about dreaming of doctors, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience starvation, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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