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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the openings of my tent and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of play, art, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as interest substituted apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives escaping the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every part of our existence: safety, dwellings, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – youth who mentioned dreaming of doctors, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience starvation, relocation and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, educators, helpers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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