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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside 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 favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents are entitled to books, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as interest substituted anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for families escaping the explosives. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools still erect in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has broken every part of our existence: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – minors who talked about dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, teachers, volunteers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

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