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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. 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 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my shelter and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, saying they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I visit a small tent where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children merit books, learning environments and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor cherishes.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a refuge for households escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our lives: security, residences, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the chaos. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, teachers, helpers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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