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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and kin. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents deserve literature, learning environments and security. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

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

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for households running from the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every part of our lives: security, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Across this territory, instructors, aid workers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several