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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the stars through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, stating they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth merit texts, learning environments and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every facet of our reality: protection, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – children who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience malnutrition, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the online access enables, I hear from a few of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, educators, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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