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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, stating they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth merit literature, schools and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream 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 scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of recreation, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for families running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are very few schools still erect in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – minors who talked about aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, teachers, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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