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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals blared through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the stars through the holes of my tent and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they can, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I attend a modest shelter where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of recreation, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity displaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives running from the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: protection, homes, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now dead – minors who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive live with malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

All over the region, educators, volunteers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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