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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. 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, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to support young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I visit a small tent where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to texts, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. 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?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of play, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every part of our lives: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who talked about becoming doctors, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several