On October 30, The Palestine Chronicle ran a news report headlined, ‘The Sweet Boy with Curly Hair’ was Found, but Under the Rubble.
The ceiling collapsed on little Yusuf Musa as his house in a south Gaza neighbourhood was hit directly by an Israeli missile. It was Yusuf’s father who identified his dead son in the hospital where he works as a doctor (he has not gone home in the last three weeks); the hospital authorities felt it would be better if Yusuf’s mother did not see her son’s disfigured remains.
Yusuf’s last words to his mother had not been heavy with the import of a final farewell; on the contrary, they glimmered with the easy certainty of a familiar routine embellished with love. “Mom, we [he and his brother] want to have dinner…” is what he said when his life took a different turn, towards death.
Gaza has become a graveyard of children, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesman James Elder stated during a news briefing in Geneva on October 31.
It is an unspeakable situation:
- On October 31, the Gaza health ministry issued a statement that of the 8,525 Palestinians killed in the past three weeks, 2,187 were women and 3,542 were children. That means 41% of those killed so far have been children.
- Over 6,000 children have been injured and about 900 children are believed to be under the rubble.
- Israeli air strikes have killed over 100 children in Gaza every day since October 7. (In the first six days alone, Israel dropped 6,000 bombs in Gaza, almost equalling the number of bombs dropped by the US in Afghanistan in one year.) UNICEF puts the figure of children killed and injured daily at over 400.
- According to Save the Children, the number of casualties among children in Gaza in three weeks “surpasses the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019”.
- Anaesthesia shortages have meant that doctors have had to carry out amputations on children without pain relief, according to Doctors Without Borders.
- The complications caused by dehydration – as Gaza now has access to a mere 5% of its water requirements – puts the lives of infants at risk.
- Children under 18 comprise half the population of 2.3 million in Gaza.
There is no end to the images of grief that are being captured 24/7. Children by themselves at hospitals after air strikes, separated from their families. Men collecting the bodies of their children wrapped in bloodstained white hospital sheets, cradling them in their arms or holding them aloft, trying to shield the women from such unimaginable sights. The furrows on their faces indicating that the grief, like a thorn embedded deep in the flesh, is here to stay.
Also read: On the Mothers of Gaza
These deaths are not collateral, caused by strikes intended for another target but landing on people’s houses. The strikes are deliberate, as the intensive targeting of residential neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals indicates. The Israeli intent of collective punishment has been made clear by its actions of cutting off water, power, fuel and food, followed by pulverising airstrikes and now a ground offensive.
On October 19, the Al Jazeera carried a graphic showing that a child who was two years of age in 2008 has lived through five crushing Israeli wars: in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014 and now, in 2023. No wonder, as one of the channel’s reports states, “In the Gaza Strip, children’s ages are measured by how many Israeli assaults they have been through.” Like a rite of passage, almost.
The trauma children in Gaza have suffered over the years has been documented in a 2022 report, Trapped, by Save the Children. The findings are not unexpected: “Fifteen years of life under blockade has left four out of five children in the Gaza Strip reporting that they live with depression, grief and fear.”
The 2022 study found that “the mental wellbeing of children, young people and caregivers has dramatically deteriorated since a similar study in 2018, with the number of children reporting emotional distress increasing to 80% from 55%.” More children said they were feeling “fearful (84% compared to 50% in 2018), sad or depressed (77% compared to 62%) and grieving (78% compared to 55%).”
A telling finding was that more than half of Gaza’s children have contemplated suicide and three out of five are self-harming.
Wars apart, for the last 15 years, the children of Gaza have been experiencing a land, air and sea blockade imposed by Israel. In fact, more than 800,000 children have never known a life without the blockade.
Also read: Gaza War Marks the Complete Collapse of Policies Israel Has Pursued Over Several Decades
Meanwhile, Israel’s rampaging war on Gaza continues, backed by Biden’s hug and protestations of support by some major European nations. Entire neighbourhoods flattened, bombed out of existence; the terrorising sound and shaking caused by missiles as they unerringly hit their targets; the constant news of the deaths of family and friends, their own bodies shattered by injuries – this is the ‘life’ of Gaza’s children today.
To be at work, reporting on the death and devastation being wrought by the Israeli assault on Gaza, and to find out that your son, daughter and grandchild have been killed by an Israeli airstrike, as happened with Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera‘s chief correspondent in the Gaza Strip; to be in the kitchen because your sweet boy with curly hair demanded dinner, and to never see him again, as happened with Yusuf’s mother Rawan – this is the ‘life’ of parents in Gaza today.
Among the families of Gaza, where children still have parents and parents still have children, fearful adults try to address the fears of their children as best as they can. An Al Jazeera report mentions several instances. One parent consoles a child saying he has gone through similar circumstances and has come through the ordeal; another tells her children how to identify the light accompanying a missile so that they brace themselves for the sound they can’t really be prepared for.
In a final gesture of love, parents embrace their children and huddle close to them, giving them the only gift that is possible in the circumstances – togetherness in death. A parent’s warm embrace of finality is a precious acknowledgement of childhood in Gaza today.