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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth deserve books, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest displaced anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for families escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions still erect in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: safety, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – children who talked about dreaming of physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience hunger, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I hear from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, helpers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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