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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; 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 support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and families. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state 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 optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always permeated the space as interest displaced apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for households running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our reality: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – children who talked about becoming doctors, painters, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with starvation, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, helpers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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