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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss 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 Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my shelter and question if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, saying they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my family member, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents deserve literature, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of play, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a place of safety but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households escaping the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities still erect in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our reality: safety, homes, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now lost – children who mentioned becoming doctors, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We share short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across the region, educators, volunteers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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