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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth are entitled to literature, schools and security. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of amusement, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for families escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our reality: security, homes, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with starvation, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, educators, aid workers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning 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 guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several