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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

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

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth deserve books, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every facet of our lives: safety, residences, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, educator?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

All over this territory, instructors, volunteers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several