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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the war began. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That morning, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my tent and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, saying 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 aspired to entering the education field to support Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth deserve books, learning environments and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of play, aesthetics, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our lives: security, residences, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who talked about becoming doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, instructors, helpers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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