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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I entered a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I go to a small tent where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, educational facilities and safety. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My classroom was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for families running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our existence: safety, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – children who mentioned becoming doctors, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here live with starvation, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of interaction amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

All over the region, educators, helpers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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