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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the holes of my tent and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, expressing they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. Other times, I go to a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to literature, schools and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of play, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity displaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has broken every facet of our existence: safety, homes, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who talked about dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a small number of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Across the region, teachers, helpers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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