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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and question if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and kin. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents deserve texts, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of recreation, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity substituted anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every part of our lives: protection, homes, schools, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – youth who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who survive endure hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, teachers, helpers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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