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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and families. I lost my family member, his wife, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to books, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Certainly, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for households running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my learners are now lost – children who spoke of dreaming of physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with starvation, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

All over the region, instructors, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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