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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study online. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity displaced apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our existence: security, residences, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who talked about aspiring to be medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive experience hunger, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We share brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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