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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the openings of my tent and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always thought education should be full of life. My classroom was a space of recreation, art, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as interest displaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – minors who mentioned becoming doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure hunger, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, teachers, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several