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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and ponder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents deserve literature, learning environments and security. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of play, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as interest displaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for families running from the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: protection, residences, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – youth who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain live with starvation, displacement and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

All over the region, educators, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

Many of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several