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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth deserve books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of play, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has shattered every aspect of our existence: protection, homes, schools, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

All over this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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