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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the stars through the holes of my shelter and ponder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study online. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit texts, learning environments and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. 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.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity substituted apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for households fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our reality: safety, dwellings, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my pupils are now lost – children who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with starvation, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, teachers, volunteers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

Many of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several