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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education 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 entering the education field to assist young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, 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 teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of recreation, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always filled the room as interest substituted fear. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every part of our reality: safety, residences, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Across the region, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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