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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my tent and question if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to books, schools and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of recreation, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every part of our lives: safety, homes, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my pupils are now dead – minors who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive live with starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, instructors, volunteers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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