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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, break time, 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 learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with 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 water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the openings of my tent and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, expressing they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to texts, educational facilities and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of amusement, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as interest substituted fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our lives: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – minors who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, teachers, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several