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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That morning, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit literature, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of play, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for families escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, teachers, helpers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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