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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and question if my companions see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I attend a tiny space where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit texts, schools and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, 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 new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our lives: protection, residences, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now dead – children who spoke of becoming doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience hunger, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the internet allows, I hear from a handful of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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