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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, stating they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Other times, I go to a tiny space where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth deserve books, educational facilities and safety. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always thought education should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our reality: protection, residences, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – youth who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who remain live with starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over the region, teachers, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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