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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. Other times, I attend a tiny space where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit texts, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of play, art, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives running from the bombs. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our existence: safety, dwellings, schools, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my students are now lost – minors who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They write asking: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

All over this territory, educators, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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