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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents are entitled to literature, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a space of play, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for families fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions still erect in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every aspect of our reality: protection, dwellings, educational centers, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – children who mentioned dreaming of physicians, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, teachers, aid workers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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