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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted not long after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, stating they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of recreation, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the bombs. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – children who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, educators, aid workers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Many of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several