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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children merit texts, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as curiosity replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every part of our lives: safety, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – children who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a small number of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across the region, educators, helpers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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