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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve texts, learning environments and safety. Education is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity substituted fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every aspect of our lives: security, homes, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now lost – children who mentioned dreaming of doctors, painters, and educators. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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