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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, stating they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support Gaza’s children study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents merit literature, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity substituted anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a refuge for families running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has broken every facet of our existence: protection, dwellings, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who talked about becoming physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience starvation, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I don’t know.

Across this territory, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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