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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to help Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where volunteers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve books, schools and security. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of recreation, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as interest substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for relatives escaping the explosives. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every facet of our existence: safety, residences, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience malnutrition, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Across this territory, teachers, aid workers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several