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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and question if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, stating they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Gaza’s children merit books, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always thought education should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of play, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity substituted anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every facet of our lives: security, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – children who mentioned dreaming of doctors, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over this territory, instructors, aid workers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several