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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed 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 final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the openings of my temporary home and question if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, saying they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where helpers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth deserve literature, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'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. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of play, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for families running from the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no schools remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every facet of our lives: security, residences, schools, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now lost – minors who talked about dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, educators, aid workers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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