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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the stars through the holes of my temporary home and question if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents deserve books, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for families escaping the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has broken every facet of our reality: protection, homes, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – children who talked about aspiring to be physicians, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive live with hunger, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a few of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, educators, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Many of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several