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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the stars through the openings of my tent and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they can, saying they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth deserve texts, schools and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of play, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity replaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for families running from the explosives. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: security, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now lost – minors who spoke of dreaming of physicians, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, teachers, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several