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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the openings of my tent and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, stating they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and families. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth deserve literature, learning environments and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of play, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools left standing in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every aspect of our existence: protection, residences, schools, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – youth who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout the region, educators, helpers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several