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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my shelter and question if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, stating they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, 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 say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents deserve literature, schools and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My classroom was a area of play, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as interest replaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every aspect of our lives: security, residences, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my students are now lost – children who spoke of becoming medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, instructor?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Across this territory, educators, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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