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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted 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 last day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I visit a tiny space where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children merit books, schools and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

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

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for households escaping the bombs. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has broken every facet of our reality: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now lost – children who talked about aspiring to be doctors, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience starvation, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I hear from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, teachers, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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