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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and families. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to texts, learning environments and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups 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 recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity substituted apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: protection, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who talked about becoming doctors, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, helpers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several