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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the holes of my tent and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, 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 global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents merit books, learning environments and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of play, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every aspect of our lives: safety, homes, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – children who spoke of aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with starvation, eviction and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, teachers, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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