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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals blared through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the holes of my tent and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Other times, I attend a small tent where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and families. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to 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 global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve texts, learning environments and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of recreation, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for families fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions left standing in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who remain live with hunger, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, educators, helpers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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