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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, 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 the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, stating they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. Other times, I go to a small tent where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve literature, educational facilities and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. First in a southern city, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every part of our existence: security, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – children who talked about dreaming of doctors, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with hunger, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

All over this territory, educators, aid workers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several