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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. Other times, I go to a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and kin. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to books, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity substituted fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every facet of our existence: security, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now lost – minors who talked about becoming physicians, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a small number of them. They message questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Across Gaza, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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