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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, stating they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – 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 thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of play, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our existence: protection, dwellings, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive experience starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

Across this territory, instructors, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several