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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. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to help local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to books, learning environments and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity replaced fear. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a refuge for families running from the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our existence: protection, dwellings, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming doctors, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message asking: “How are you, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, instructors, volunteers and non-profits endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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