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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Other times, I visit a small tent where volunteers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and families. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents merit literature, schools and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always permeated the space as interest displaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our existence: protection, residences, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – children who mentioned becoming physicians, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message asking: “How are you, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Across the region, teachers, aid workers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several