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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That morning, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my tent and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, saying they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents merit literature, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity replaced apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few schools left standing in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has broken every part of our reality: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with starvation, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, instructors, aid workers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a mother of {three|several