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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and kin. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit texts, schools and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of amusement, art, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has broken every facet of our reality: protection, homes, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure hunger, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Across this territory, instructors, aid workers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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