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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the stars through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where helpers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth merit literature, educational facilities and security. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor cherishes.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: protection, residences, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now dead – minors who talked about aspiring to be doctors, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, instructors, aid workers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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