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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, recess, 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 education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, saying they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help young residents study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and kin. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth deserve books, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My classroom was a zone of play, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as interest substituted fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now dead – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure starvation, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I hear from a few of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

All over the region, instructors, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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