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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end 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 reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Other times, I visit a tiny space where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve books, learning environments and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of amusement, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as interest substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for families running from the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our lives: safety, residences, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now lost – youth who talked about becoming physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience hunger, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I hear from a small number of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I don’t know.

All over this territory, instructors, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several