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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, schools and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always thought learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities still erect in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our lives: safety, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – minors who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive experience malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, volunteers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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