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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page 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 live with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth deserve books, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor strives for.

I always thought learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of play, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest substituted apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for households fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few schools left standing in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The hostilities has shattered every part of our reality: safety, residences, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now dead – children who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with starvation, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We share short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout the region, instructors, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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