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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my tent and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit literature, learning environments and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity replaced fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives running from the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no schools remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every aspect of our reality: security, homes, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now deceased – youth who spoke of becoming doctors, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across the region, instructors, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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