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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message 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 dreamed of entering the education field to assist young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and families. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit literature, schools and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity displaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our lives: safety, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – children who talked about dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience starvation, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

All over this territory, teachers, helpers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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