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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for families running from the aerial attacks. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our existence: security, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – youth who mentioned dreaming of doctors, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with hunger, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across the region, educators, volunteers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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