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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, providing no climate control. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I try to study online. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth merit literature, learning environments and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. 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.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a space of play, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity displaced fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for families running from the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every part of our lives: security, homes, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I get in touch with a few of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, teachers, volunteers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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