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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they can, saying they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support young residents study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I lost my family member, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents merit books, educational facilities and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of recreation, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity replaced fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for families running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every part of our lives: safety, homes, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write asking: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over the region, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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