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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my tent and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children merit texts, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of play, art, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our existence: safety, dwellings, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – children who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain live with starvation, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact asking: “How are you, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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