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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study online. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth deserve books, learning environments and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of amusement, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity displaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the bombs. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our existence: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – minors who talked about dreaming of doctors, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain endure hunger, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access permits, I hear from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across the region, instructors, volunteers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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