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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the war began. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation 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 Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I try to study online. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth deserve literature, schools and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My classroom was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity replaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a refuge for households fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few learning institutions left standing in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every facet of our lives: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now dead – youth who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I hear from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They question if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across the region, educators, volunteers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several