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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, educational facilities and security. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now lost – children who talked about becoming physicians, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across the region, teachers, helpers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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