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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, stating they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and kin. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children merit books, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, 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 new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as interest displaced fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – minors who spoke of becoming physicians, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive experience starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I hear from a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several