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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my tent and question if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I attend a modest shelter where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children merit books, schools and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of play, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has broken every part of our existence: protection, residences, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – minors who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Across this territory, teachers, helpers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several