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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I attend a small tent where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, schools and safety. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of play, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no schools remaining intact in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our reality: security, dwellings, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who spoke of dreaming of physicians, painters, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience starvation, relocation and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several