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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That morning, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my tent and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit literature, schools and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always thought education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity substituted apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in the region now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every part of our lives: protection, residences, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, painters, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, aid workers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

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