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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where volunteers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve texts, schools and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of amusement, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for families running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few schools left standing in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who mentioned becoming medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, teachers, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several