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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth are entitled to literature, learning environments and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every facet of our reality: safety, homes, schools, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned dreaming of doctors, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

Across Gaza, educators, volunteers and non-profits endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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