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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Other times, I go to a small tent where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and families. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth are entitled to books, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of play, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every aspect of our reality: security, homes, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – youth who spoke of dreaming of doctors, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout the region, educators, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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