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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That morning, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and families. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth are entitled to texts, schools and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity displaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for families running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: safety, residences, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, teachers, helpers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several