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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit literature, learning environments and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for households escaping the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our lives: safety, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my learners are now dead – youth who spoke of dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several