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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my tent and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit books, schools and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of play, art, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our reality: protection, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – children who spoke of dreaming of doctors, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with starvation, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access enables, I hear from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Across the region, instructors, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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