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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, stating they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of play, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our existence: protection, residences, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – youth who talked about dreaming of physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

All over the region, instructors, volunteers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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