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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

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 dwell alongside my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my tent and question if my friends see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, stating they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story 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?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives escaping the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities left standing in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our existence: safety, homes, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, instructors, volunteers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several