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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, stating they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study online. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and families. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, 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 international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve books, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of play, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for families fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every part of our lives: security, homes, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who remain live with starvation, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

All over this territory, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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