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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page 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, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my tent and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve books, schools and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for families escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our existence: protection, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, instructor?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

All over the region, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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