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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the stars through the holes of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I try to study online. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, 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 say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents deserve books, educational facilities and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of recreation, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives running from the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every facet of our reality: safety, residences, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – youth who spoke of aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive endure malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a small number of them. They write inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

All over this territory, instructors, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several