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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed soon after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my tent and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, stating they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth deserve literature, learning environments and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as interest displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every facet of our lives: protection, homes, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience starvation, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I hear from a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of connection amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, educators, helpers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several