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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 learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they can, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit books, schools and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity displaced fear. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for relatives running from the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every part of our lives: security, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now dead – children who talked about aspiring to be physicians, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the chaos. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Across Gaza, teachers, aid workers and charities try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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