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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they can, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit texts, learning environments and security. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of recreation, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every facet of our reality: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – youth who spoke of becoming physicians, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience starvation, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I get in touch with a few of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Across the region, educators, volunteers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several