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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my shelter and question if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, saying they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, learning environments and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity displaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households running from the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools left standing in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every facet of our lives: protection, residences, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – children who talked about dreaming of doctors, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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