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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and families. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a zone of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for relatives escaping the bombs. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our lives: safety, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now lost – minors who spoke of becoming physicians, artists, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with hunger, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

All over the region, teachers, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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