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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I go to a small tent where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve books, learning environments and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools still erect in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has broken every part of our reality: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – children who talked about becoming doctors, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here live with starvation, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, educators, helpers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several