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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study online. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and kin. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted fear. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our existence: safety, dwellings, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with hunger, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They write questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, teachers, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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