Just two years ago, at the beginning of September, the streets of Gaza were bustling with the familiar sight of children lining up for school, carrying new backpacks and colorful notebooks, innocently singing the national anthem, and racing to their classrooms in search of a school day full of hope.
Today, the scene has changed completely; the school line has turned into a long line in front of relief centers and soup kitchens, where children stand barefoot, in dirty clothes and with empty bowls, waiting for a meal that may save their lives and satisfy their hunger.
A stolen childhood in Gaza
The Israeli war, which has been ongoing since 7 October 2023, has torn apart life in Gaza and robbed children of their right to education, play, and even food. There are no longer safe schools, playgrounds, or classrooms, only tents that lack the most basic necessities of life.
More than 18,000 children have been killed, and tens of thousands have been wounded or left with permanent disabilities, while the survivors live under the burden of hunger and siege. For them, childhood is no longer the beginning of a journey, but a daily battle for survival.
From schoolbags to bowls
In the queues that stretch for hours in front of relief kitchens, children carry plastic bowls instead of schoolbags. They do not ask about lessons or exams, but talk about the type of meal they might get:
Will there be lentils today? Or a little rice?
In those lines, children’s laughter disappears, replaced by pale faces and sunken eyes. Some children put their hands on their empty stomachs in an attempt to soothe the pain of hunger, while others drag their tired feet, unable to stand for long. Many collapse on the ground from exhaustion before their turn comes, and their parents carry them away, fearing that this may be the last time they see them alive.
Hunger shapes their features
According to the Ministry of Health, 43,000 children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, and more than 55,000 pregnant and lactating women face the same risk. In August alone, 185 deaths due to starvation were recorded, most of them among children.
However, UNRWA asserts that the actual toll is much higher, as many die silently in tents and are buried without official registration.
Emaciated bodies and a generation in Gaza silently wiped out
The bodies of Gazan children are no longer able to resist disease. Their immunity, weakened by hunger, has made the spread of epidemics faster and more deadly: meningitis, hepatitis, and other diseases that had disappeared before the war have returned to ravage young bodies. In addition, hundreds of thousands suffer from severe psychological disorders, including nightmares, isolation, and bedwetting.
Between the school queue and the food queue lies a cruel distance known only to the children of Gaza, an entire generation torn from their schoolbooks and thrown into the queues of hunger, where dreams are stolen before a morsel of food. There, the world stands silent, while the tears of these children write the most horrific chapters of genocide in the 21st century.
Featured image via the Canary
