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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, learning centers and families. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble 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. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents deserve literature, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of play, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions left standing in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our existence: safety, dwellings, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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