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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the stars through the holes of my tent and question if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support young residents study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and families. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth deserve literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of recreation, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families running from the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every part of our existence: protection, homes, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – children who talked about becoming doctors, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

All over the region, educators, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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