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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We wait in line for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my shelter and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where helpers teach us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Young residents are entitled to literature, schools and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of play, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every aspect of our reality: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – youth who talked about dreaming of physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who survive experience starvation, displacement and weariness – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access allows, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, instructors, volunteers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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