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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. That long 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. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, 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 fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always thought learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced apprehension. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few schools remaining intact in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every aspect of our reality: protection, homes, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I hear from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, educator?” We communicate brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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