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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops 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 knowledge could alter reality.

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, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of amusement, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every facet of our lives: protection, residences, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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