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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my shelter and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. Other times, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, educational facilities and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my account 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?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor strives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My classroom was a space of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every facet of our lives: security, homes, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – children who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

Across this territory, teachers, helpers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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