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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 was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they are able, stating they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to literature, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of play, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as curiosity substituted fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every aspect of our reality: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now lost – youth who talked about becoming physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They write asking: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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