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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, stating they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. Other times, I attend a tiny space where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for families running from the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few schools remaining intact in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, residences, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure starvation, eviction and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, instructors, helpers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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