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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the war began. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

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

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, saying they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth deserve books, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of play, art, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest substituted anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools left standing in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has broken every aspect of our reality: protection, dwellings, schools, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – children who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, educators, helpers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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