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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children merit literature, schools and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always thought education should be vibrant. 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 filled the room as interest displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for households escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our reality: security, residences, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several