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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of recreation, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest substituted apprehension. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families running from the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our reality: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now lost – minors who talked about becoming medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout the region, instructors, volunteers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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