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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Other times, I go to a small tent where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. The youth deserve literature, schools and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of recreation, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity displaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for families running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, painters, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, educators, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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