For a year, a carpet bomb has fallen on the Gaza Strip. Official reports show more than 40,000 deaths – probably more –, the majority of them women and children. Forbidden to the international press, the Palestinian enclave is the scene of a massacre behind closed doors. Palestinian journalists are the only ones to bear witness to the horrors of this war. More than 150 of them paid with their lives. These portraits of children were written by three Gazan journalists. They bear witness to the suffering, the sadness, the broken lives of the children of Gaza.
Ebrahim Wahid AL-Na’na’
In the corridors of the Nasser hospital in Khan Younès, Ebrahim Wahid Al-Na’na’ wanders, his features drawn, his face pale, his body exhausted. Ebrahim is barely 13 years old and he hasn’t eaten all day. He carries dirty clothes on his young shoulders and the weight of the responsibility of “head of the family” which is beyond his age. His life changed almost a year ago. Happiness, love and joy, despite political and economic difficulties, have given way to war and its horrors.
Originally from Bani Suheila, two kilometers east of Khan Younès, Ebrahim Wahid Al-Na’na’ remembers the evacuation order, the leaflets dropped by the Israeli army forcing his family to take the path of the exodus. He didn’t expect this area to be affected. The bombardments began immediately, incessantly, on homes. “My family and I, seven members in total, fled to a safer place without knowing our destination,” says the child.
They will find refuge 5 kilometers from the Nasser hospital, in an area destroyed by bombs, in the rubble of collapsed buildings, sitting in the street, for lack of anything better. The schools in the area are full, as are the makeshift camps and temporary tents.
The Nasser hospital does not accept refugees within it, Ebrahim’s family has no other choice than to survive outside, in all weathers, in the heat of the day and the cold of the night. “We only took with us milk and diapers for my 8-month-old sister,” says the young boy. “I was supposed to be at school, he continues. I miss my pen, my notebook, writing and my teacher…”
