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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, saying they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; 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 Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. 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 homes, schools and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve literature, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always thought education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of play, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families running from the explosives. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our existence: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience starvation, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across the region, educators, helpers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a mother of {three|several