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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. 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 fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to support young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I visit a small tent where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of play, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our lives: safety, residences, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now lost – children who spoke of aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, teachers, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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