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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the night lights through the holes of my shelter and question if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, saying 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 entering the education field to assist young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to literature, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of amusement, creativity, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest displaced apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a refuge for relatives escaping the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our lives: protection, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – children who mentioned becoming medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain endure malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a few of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Across this territory, educators, helpers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several