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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed 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 literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, saying they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and families. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, educational facilities and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My classroom was a area of amusement, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest displaced fear. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no schools left standing in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every part of our lives: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who talked about aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with starvation, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access allows, I hear from a few of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

All over this territory, instructors, helpers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several