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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, alert signals blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, stating they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. Other times, I attend a tiny space where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve books, schools and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of play, creativity, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest displaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every part of our reality: security, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now lost – children who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across the region, educators, helpers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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