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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to support young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning digitally. Other times, I attend a small tent where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and families. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve literature, learning environments and safety. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity replaced fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families running from the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every facet of our lives: protection, homes, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming physicians, painters, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact asking: “How are you, teacher?” We share short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, aid workers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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