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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to support young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents deserve literature, educational facilities and security. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every part of our existence: security, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – minors who talked about dreaming of physicians, artists, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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