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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist young residents study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for families escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions still erect in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now dead – minors who mentioned becoming medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive live with hunger, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a handful of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, educators, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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