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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

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

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and ponder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and families. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of play, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity displaced apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for households fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every aspect of our existence: safety, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the internet allows, I hear from a small number of them. They write questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, volunteers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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