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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, saying they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and families. I lost my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble 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. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to literature, learning environments and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of play, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every facet of our existence: safety, dwellings, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now dead – children who spoke of dreaming of physicians, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain live with hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

All over the region, educators, helpers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several