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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed soon after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, saying they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity displaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few schools left standing in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my pupils are now dead – youth who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, displacement and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over Gaza, instructors, helpers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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