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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Other times, I visit a tiny space where helpers teach us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth are entitled to texts, learning environments and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any schools left standing in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our existence: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – youth who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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