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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long 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 concluding day I went to school. That morning, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

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

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, stating they miss school and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth deserve books, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance 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.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of play, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for households fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few schools still erect in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, residences, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now dead – minors who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, instructors, aid workers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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