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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist young residents study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and families. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a zone of play, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity replaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for households running from the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our reality: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure starvation, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the internet permits, I hear from a few of them. They write inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over Gaza, teachers, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several