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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my shelter and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, stating they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children merit texts, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes 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 twinkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

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

Joy always occupied the area as interest displaced fear. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: protection, homes, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – youth who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain endure malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, aid workers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

Many of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several