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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my shelter and question if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, expressing they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and kin. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, 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 global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth merit books, schools and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for relatives fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our lives: safety, homes, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – minors who spoke of dreaming of physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over this territory, instructors, volunteers and non-profits attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several