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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

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

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my tent and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, learning environments and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My classroom was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest substituted apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for relatives running from the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our existence: protection, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, helpers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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