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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my tent and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, 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 say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, schools and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as interest substituted apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every aspect of our existence: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, artists, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here live with starvation, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over Gaza, teachers, aid workers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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