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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 real classroom. That long since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study online. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where helpers teach us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and families. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to 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 global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to texts, schools and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools still erect in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our existence: security, homes, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – minors who talked about becoming medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive experience hunger, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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