![Palestinians, carrying their personal belongings, try to fled to safer areas to escape from Israeli attacks on Jabalia Refugee Camp in Jabalia, Gaza on May 30, 2025. [Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AA-20250530-38133692-38133686-ISRAELI_ARMY_FORCIBLY_DISPLACES_PALESTINIANS_IN_NORTHERN_GAZA-1-1.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
A stolen childhood at the heart of war
Childhood is supposed to be a time of innocence, laughter, and dreams that stretch as far as the sky. But in Gaza, childhood has been reduced to ashes—burned by sorrow and shaped by cruelty. The children of Gaza, who should be chasing butterflies and learning the alphabet, are instead surrounded by the debris of war and the echo of explosions. Since the war broke out in 2023, blood, destruction, and hunger have become the daily reality for Gaza’s children. These wounds will not heal with time; they are carved into the soul.
Since the beginning of the war, approximately 20,000 babies have been born in Gaza—one child every ten minutes. But these births took place under the harshest conditions: hospitals stripped of even the most basic equipment, medical centers turned to rubble, and doctors forced to work in fear of airstrikes. The miracle of birth is now shadowed by fear and uncertainty.
No child in Gaza has been spared the brutality of Israeli bombardment. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, about 14,350 children have been killed—44 per cent of all those who have died in this war. That’s four children lost every hour.
READ: UNICEF: 21 malnutrition treatment centres close in Gaza due to Israeli aggression
The Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, described the situation with chilling clarity: “More children have been killed in just four months in Gaza than in all global conflicts combined over the past four and a half years.”
The stolen rights
These children have not only lost their lives. They’ve also lost their most basic rights—things the world sees as guaranteed.
More than 625,000 children have been denied education. Schools have been destroyed or turned into shelters for displaced families. Others are simply unreachable due to constant danger. The streets, once filled with the sounds of children’s laughter, are now lined with shattered glass, crumbled buildings, and silence. Playgrounds have become graveyards. Classrooms are battlegrounds.
The only sound that breaks through is the hunger that rumbles from tiny stomachs. In Gaza, children are fighting two wars: one against bombs, the other against starvation.
Born into war
For thousands of children born during the war, the idea of a “normal life” is a distant fantasy. Children like Ezz Aldin, my older sister’s son who’s now over one year old, and Hossam, my other sister’s six-month-old baby, have never known peace. Born under shelling and soot, these babies have never celebrated a birthday with cake. Their memories are filled with sirens, and a gnawing hunger.
For mothers, even basic childcare is a mountain too high to climb. Diapers, formula, medicine—these are no longer everyday items; they’re luxuries. Store shelves are empty. Aid, if it arrives at all, is often held back, delayed, or unaffordable. One day, my sister told me with disbelief, “I never thought I’d find myself counting the number of diapers my baby uses.” She’s not alone. Every mother in Gaza is doing the same kind of math.
READ: UNICEF chief: Israel-led aid distribution plan in Gaza ‘complete chaos’
Noor and the egg
My niece Noor is a beautiful three-year-old girl. We spoil her every chance we get. One day, my sister shared a story that broke our hearts. Noor kept asking for a simple thing: just one egg. But there were none. There was no food in the market at all. This became a daily heartbreak—how do you explain to a child that there is no food? No eggs?
Every morning, Noor would wake up and ask for just one egg. That was her dream. But there were no eggs—not in the stores, not even from the family chicken, who had stopped laying for unknown reasons. Her father, desperate to make her happy, made a special homemade mix to help the chicken recover. Miraculously, after many failed attempts, it worked—the chicken laid one egg.
When her mother cooked it, Noor’s joy lit up the house. She jumped and squealed, shouting, “Egg! Egg! Egg!” It wasn’t just a meal. It was hope. It was victory in a place where victories are rare. One egg became a celebration.
Chocolate and biscuits: The new impossible
Every morning, Noor asks for chocolate and biscuits—just like any child would. These are innocent requests. But now, in Gaza, they’re impossible dreams. “No chocolate. No biscuits,” my sister would whisper, unsure how to break the truth to her daughter. How do you tell a three-year-old that the world has failed to feed its children? That chocolate is now a casualty of war?
Noor is just one of thousands of children whose childhood pleasures have been stolen by hunger and siege.
Stories that broke my heart
Azmi Abu Al-Shaar: A final message
In January 2025, ten-year-old Azmi Abu Al-Shaar wrote a message on his phone just minutes before he was killed in an Israeli airstrike. It was short—a goodbye no child should ever have to write. He asked his family to forgive him. He told them he loved them. Then, silence. His words were a heartbreaking reminder of how fragile childhood has become in Gaza.
Moatasem Shaqshaq: A Dream of School
Eight-year-old Moatasem lives in a tent with his displaced family. When asked about his dreams, he didn’t mention toys or trips to the beach. He simply said, “I want the war to stop so I can go back to school.” That’s his dream. While children around the world dream of adventure and fun, Moatasem dreams of textbooks and blackboards—a future free from fear.
Bisan Al-Tabban: Drawing Peace
Seven-year-old Bisan lives in Rafah in a tent with twelve others. When asked about her wish, she said, “I don’t want to hear bombs anymore. I want to draw again.” Just like that. A simple wish—to draw. In a place where every day brings new danger, Bisan’s longing to create art is a reminder of what has been stolen from Gaza’s children: imagination, freedom, and peace.
Fatima Suhwail’s Project: Stories Under the Tree
In a gentle attempt to bring back a sense of childhood, journalist Fatima Suhwail began gathering displaced children around a tree to tell them stories. Her initiative, “Tales Under the Tree,” gives them a few moments of escape. A small window into a world of dreams. It may seem small, but to these children, it is everything—a way to remember laughter, wonder, and hope.
The Rights They Were Denied
Children in Gaza have been robbed of the rights every child should have. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children are entitled to grow up free from violence, to be educated, to receive healthcare, and to play and explore. But in Gaza, those rights are gone.
The right to education:
While children elsewhere attend school with lunchboxes and backpacks, Gaza’s children are left with ruins. Bombed-out classrooms, a shortage of supplies, and constant fear have made education a distant dream.
The right to play:
In many places, children run in parks, ride bikes, and play hide and seek. In Gaza, play is a privilege they can’t afford. Instead, they search for food or shelter. Swings have been replaced by air-raid sirens. Laughter has been drowned out by drones.
The right to safety:
Safety is a basic right—but not in Gaza. Children live under constant threat. Home, school, even shelters—nowhere is safe. The fear eats at their minds. And trauma becomes their closest companion.
The right to health and well-being:
Access to doctors and medicine is a right, not a reward. But in Gaza, hospitals are in ruins. Medical supplies are nearly gone. Children are dying from treatable conditions and starvation. The world watches, and does nothing.
A cry to the world
What kind of world lets children die for politics? What kind of humanity turns away when a child asks for milk?
The children of Gaza do not need pity. They need justice. They need the world to hear their cries, see their suffering, and act—not tomorrow, but now.
Every child deserves a warm bed, a classroom, a toy, and a full plate of food. But in Gaza, children are given graves, ruins, and hunger.
Shame on the silence. Shame on a world that counts their deaths but not their dreams.
This is not just a war on Gaza.
This is a war on childhood.
And history will remember who stayed silent.
READ: ‘Catastrophic situation in Gaza is the worst’ since beginning of Israeli attacks: UN
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.