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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That morning, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. 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 there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of play, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest substituted anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few schools left standing in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every part of our existence: security, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – minors who talked about dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain endure starvation, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, instructors, helpers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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