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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted not long after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my tent and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help Gaza’s children study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to texts, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account 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, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a zone of play, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our reality: safety, homes, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience hunger, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I hear from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, teachers, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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