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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I attend a tiny space where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents merit literature, schools and protection. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of play, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity replaced anxiety. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for households running from the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of physicians, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I hear from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, aid workers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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