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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents merit books, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool 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 this area for more than a decade. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a zone of play, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity displaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for families running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our existence: safety, residences, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now dead – children who mentioned dreaming of physicians, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, volunteers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several