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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my uncle, his spouse, 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 education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents merit literature, schools and security. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor cherishes.

I always believed education should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest displaced fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for households running from the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has broken every part of our existence: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now dead – youth who talked about becoming physicians, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “How are you, instructor?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, instructors, helpers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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