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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the openings of my tent and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, stating they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents merit texts, educational facilities and safety. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity replaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for relatives fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every part of our reality: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – children who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who remain experience malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, educators, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

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