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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and question if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and families. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth merit books, learning environments and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of play, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as interest replaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our existence: protection, homes, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, instructors, helpers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several