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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon 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 last day I entered the school building. That morning, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, 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 fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I attend a tiny space where volunteers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and families. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents merit books, learning environments and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of amusement, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few schools still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – children who spoke of dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience hunger, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, aid workers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several