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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My classroom was a zone of amusement, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as interest replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our existence: security, homes, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now dead – minors who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience hunger, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, educators, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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