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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and protection. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of amusement, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are hardly any schools left standing in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our lives: protection, residences, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, artists, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Across the region, educators, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several