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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study online. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to texts, schools and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for households running from the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every part of our lives: security, residences, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now lost – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with hunger, relocation and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a small number of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, instructors, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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