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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals blared through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. 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. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the stars through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where helpers educate us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and relatives. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth merit literature, schools and safety. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for households running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our existence: security, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – minors who mentioned becoming medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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