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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I visit a tiny space where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth deserve literature, schools and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest displaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few schools still erect in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our lives: security, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my students are now lost – youth who talked about aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure starvation, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, volunteers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several