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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the gaps of my tent and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to support local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth are entitled to books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity replaced apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for relatives escaping the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our lives: security, residences, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now lost – children who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with hunger, relocation and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, educators, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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