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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

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

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to books, schools and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of play, creativity, and movement. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no schools still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our existence: security, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain endure hunger, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, educators, aid workers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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