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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, break time, 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 schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, stating they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents deserve texts, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every part of our existence: protection, homes, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming physicians, painters, and educators. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several