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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, stating they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and kin. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of play, art, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions left standing in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our lives: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – youth who mentioned becoming physicians, painters, and educators. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I hear from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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