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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the holes of my temporary home and question if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, learning environments and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of play, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity substituted fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for households running from the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every part of our lives: security, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – youth who spoke of becoming physicians, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with starvation, relocation and weariness – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, educators, helpers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several