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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 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, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals blared through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out 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 knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents merit texts, schools and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of amusement, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our lives: safety, homes, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – youth who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive live with malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

Across Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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