The Stolen Childhood of Palestinian Children

Every day, I leave my home in the early morning to work. I head to a school belonging to UNRWA in the Nuseirat refugee camp, which shelters thousands of displaced people. I continue working inside the school until the evening hours. I earn some money, never more than 20 Israeli shekels per day. I give the money to my father, who lost his job during the war, to help my family with household expenses and to provide some food for my 12 siblings. This has been my daily life since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza.

I live with my brothers and sisters in a simple house in the Nuseirat camp, in the middle of the Gaza Strip. I have three sisters, and the rest are boys. I am the oldest among my siblings. I study in the seventh preparatory grade, and my academic average is 75%. I have been working for years during summer vacations, holidays, and special occasions to help my father because his salary is not enough to meet the needs of our large family. My father worked in a sweets factory in Gaza City called Abu Al-Saud Sweets Factory, one of the most famous sweets factories in the Gaza Strip. It is located south of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, where my father worked for several years. But on the first day of the Israeli occupation’s war on the Gaza Strip, my father lost his job.

My father was unable to go to work in the early days of the war due to the intense Israeli bombardment. After the occupation began its ground assault on the Gaza Strip at the end of October 2023, it separated the north of the Gaza Strip from the south. This completely prevented my father from accessing his workplace.

After the occupation invaded Gaza City and reached the Al- Shifa Medical Complex, the occupation warplanes bombed the sweets factory where my father worked, destroying it and depriving my father of his job. The bombing also deprived dozens of my father’s colleagues of work, and they all became unemployed. Before the war, there was a 70% unemployment rate among youth in the Gaza Strip.
 
I’ve owned trampolines since before the war. I used to rent them out during events and summer vacations. But in the early days of the war, after my father lost his job, I started my simple trampoline business at Al-Jaouni school in the middle of the Nuseirat camp. Al-Jaouni school is affiliated with UNRWA, and is crowded with thousands of displaced people.

I go to the school every day. Children play on the trampolines for a few minutes in exchange for one Israeli shekel. I spend over 12 hours at the school. On many days, I don’t even make 5 shekels because the displaced people don’t have money. They’ve lost their jobs, homes, and providers. They rely entirely on aid.

I’m afraid to put the trampolines outside the school’s sheltered areas because Israeli bombardment is everywhere. Even the school where I work was bombed twice by the occupation forces. Many displaced people were martyred or wounded there. But God saved me from the bombing both times.

In the first bombing of the school, I was standing at the school’s gate, and the occupation bombed the school yard. In the second bombing, I was going to repair the trampoline, and the bombing happened very close to where I usually place the trampoline. But God saved me. I fear that I will be killed or injured and disabled by the occupation’s missiles. I see hundreds of wounded and injured every day in shelters.

During the Eid al-Fitr, several youth groups organized a “Holiday Joy” event for displaced children at the school. I joined them in entertaining the children and opened the trampoline game for them to play for free. I was happy to bring joy to the faces of displaced children. While I need money to help my family, I was extremely happy with this beautiful humanitarian work.

Trampolines constantly need repairs. They have numerous iron assemblies and fabric pieces for children to jump on. The iron gets broken, and the fabric tears. Before this war, I used to repair them for a small amount, but now, repairing them has become very costly.

I used to weld several iron pieces for ten Israeli shekels before the war, but during the war, welding one piece costs 20 shekels. I also need to sew the fabric at the tailor’s shop, but there has been no electricity in Gaza since the first day of the war. This lack has forced me to learn hand sewing to sew them myself, but the quality is different from what a sewing machine would provide.

When the occupation forces invaded the central camps of the Gaza Strip at the beginning of January 2024, we fled to the city of Deir al-Balah to escape the Israeli shelling. I left the trampolines at the school and left with my family in search of safety. We stayed in tents for over three weeks, then returned to our home, which was heavily damaged by the Israeli shelling that hit large areas across the camp.

My cousin, Akram Saeed Al-Halabi, 18 years old, fled the Israeli missiles. While walking on Salah al-Din Street heading to Rafah, the occupation aircraft bombed him, and he was martyred instantly. He was buried without us being able to bid him farewell. After the occupation forces withdrew, we dug up his grave to confirm his identity. After confirming, we reburied him away from our homes in Khan Younis near the tents of the displaced people.

The occupation bulldozers destroyed my uncles’ houses during the incursion into Bureij camp. The occupation also bombed and destroyed my uncle’s house on Salah al-Din Street. Our house was significantly damaged, like all the houses in Gaza. We walk daily among the rubble, living amidst the ruins, bidding farewell to our loved ones and relatives every day. We have lost a lot in this war.

I continue to work while studying because I dream of completing my university education, getting a job in the future to help my family with our expenses, and securing my family’s and my future. I now feel tired and exhausted, and I hope to rest from this fatigue when I grow up. I hope my future will be better than my fathers future, which was destroyed by the occupation.

My dream was to complete my education when I grew up, but the occupation destroyed dozens of universities and schools, and dozens more schools were turned into shelters for hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have lost their homes. We lost a school year from our lives. The occupation completely destroyed our lives, but I will continue to work hard to achieve my dream.

My father dreamed of rebuilding our house and maintaining a beautiful life for us, but my father is now unemployed, and the occupation completely destroyed his workplace. The responsibility now falls on me and my siblings to help our family overcome this difficult situation. I hope we can rebuild our house and that I can contribute to providing a decent life for my younger siblings.

I often think of my martyred cousin and many of my neighbours and friends who are martyrs, and I imagine myself being targeted by the bombing soon. I could be the next martyr. I am very afraid of the sounds of shelling and gunfire, but we have become accustomed to hearing them in the eighth month of the war. I dream that the war will stop, and people will return to their home. I dream that we will return to our schools, complete our education, and end all this suffering imposed on us by the occupation. I dream that we will return to our lives, that my father will be able to find suitable work, and that smiles will return to all the children of Gaza.