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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the openings of my tent and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, stating they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. 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.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing 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 sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

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

Joy always permeated the space as interest substituted anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our reality: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now dead – children who talked about aspiring to be physicians, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience starvation, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the online access allows, I hear from a handful of them. They message asking: “How are you, educator?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, teachers, volunteers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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