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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, expressing they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. Other times, I attend a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and families. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents deserve books, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

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

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households running from the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few schools left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our reality: safety, homes, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming doctors, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I tell them I don’t know.

All over this territory, educators, helpers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several