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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they can, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents deserve books, schools and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of play, art, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every facet of our reality: security, residences, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now lost – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience starvation, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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