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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, stating they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents are entitled to texts, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for relatives running from the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our reality: safety, residences, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who spoke of dreaming of physicians, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain endure starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

All over this territory, teachers, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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