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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my tent and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. 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 envisioned becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to books, educational facilities and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream 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 piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities left standing in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our existence: security, homes, educational centers, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, teachers, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several