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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my tent and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, stating they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I lost my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth deserve texts, learning environments and security. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a space of play, art, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity displaced fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives running from the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our reality: protection, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now dead – children who talked about aspiring to be medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a few of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, helpers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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