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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my preferred subject. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, schools and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of amusement, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our reality: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – youth who spoke of aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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