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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the holes of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents deserve texts, learning environments and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of recreation, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as interest substituted apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every aspect of our reality: protection, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – youth who talked about becoming medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a few of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, teachers, aid workers and charities try to teach wherever possible: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several