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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help local youth acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit books, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of recreation, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every part of our lives: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – minors who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure hunger, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, teachers, helpers and non-profits endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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