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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the night lights through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where helpers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth deserve books, schools and security. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every part of our reality: safety, residences, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain endure hunger, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

All over this territory, instructors, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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