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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth deserve books, schools and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every facet of our lives: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now lost – children who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with malnutrition, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, instructors, aid workers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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