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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

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

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the night lights through the holes of my tent and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. Other times, I attend a modest shelter where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who persist in hoping 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 fragment of ripped sheet.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity replaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every part of our reality: safety, homes, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now lost – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, artists, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I hear from a few of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, teachers, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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