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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I go to a small tent where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, learning environments and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of amusement, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for families escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has broken every aspect of our lives: security, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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