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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a real classroom. That long since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, alert signals blared through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children merit texts, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of amusement, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, residences, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now lost – youth who mentioned becoming physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

All over this territory, teachers, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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