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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

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

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, stating they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and families. I lost my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for households fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our reality: security, homes, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, teachers, aid workers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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