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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and question if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, saying they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. Other times, I go to a small tent where helpers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to books, schools and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always thought education should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of play, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced fear. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every part of our lives: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now dead – children who talked about dreaming of physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who survive live with starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, educators, helpers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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