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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That early hours, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the stars through the openings of my tent and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, stating they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents deserve texts, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account 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, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few schools left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every part of our existence: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – children who mentioned becoming doctors, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over the region, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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