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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation 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 Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and kin. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and security. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is children who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a zone of play, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity displaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our reality: protection, homes, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now dead – children who spoke of dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with hunger, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

Across this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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