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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That morning, alert signals blared through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, saying they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, educational facilities and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach several sets of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of amusement, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our existence: safety, homes, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several