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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I was last inside 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. At times 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 hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my tent and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, stating they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

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

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth deserve literature, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a space of recreation, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every aspect of our lives: safety, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, volunteers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several