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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit texts, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My classroom was a area of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for families fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our lives: safety, homes, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – children who talked about dreaming of physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain experience malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, instructors, aid workers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

Many of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several