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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; 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 support young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents deserve texts, educational facilities and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still remember the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: safety, homes, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Across this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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