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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation 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. The youth deserve books, educational facilities and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of play, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our existence: security, dwellings, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – minors who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

All over the region, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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