Philanthropy wants to build Gen Z's confidence in institutions. Will youth empowerment foster trust?
NEW YORK (AP) — Perhaps the outlook developed when COVID-19's uncontrolled spread upended nearly every facet of their young lives. Maybe it was hardened as the worst of climate change's harms grew likelier despite scientists' stark warnings. It's possible the attitude even formed from early memories of the financial insecurity brought upon their families by the Great Recession.
Whatever the reason, it's well documented that Gen Z tends to lack trust in the major institutions that previous generations expected to safeguard their futures.
Around 1 in 10 adults under 30 had 'a great deal of confidence' in the people running the Supreme Court in an AP-NORC poll from June 2024. A May 2023 survey found 44% of adults under 30 had 'hardly any confidence at all' in those running banks and financial institutions — about twice the share of adults ages 60 and older, who felt the same way.
The gap extends to other behaviors. An AP-NORC poll conducted in March found that only about one-quarter of adults under 30 volunteered their time to charity in the past year or provided non-financial support to people in their community, compared to 36% of those over 60. Younger adults were also more likely than older adults to say they or their household donated $0 to charity, according to the poll.
The philanthropic sector is working to reverse any disillusionment by empowering Gen Z to make the structural change they so often seek. Born out of the idea that young people distrust institutions because they don't feel served or included, several initiatives are underway with hopes that more responsive institutions will be seen as more legitimate ones. Perhaps the most optimistic believe their energy can bring alternatives to the status quo to life — if only given meaningful roles.
'Young people — we're not just victims of these systems. We have agency and we have power,' said Summer Dean, 27, who breaks down complex environmental topics into actionable information for the 116,000 followers of her Instagram, @climatediva.
'If you want to inspire us, actually include us in solid structures of your organization,' she added.
When DeNora Getachew became DoSomething CEO in April 2021 during the pandemic, she acknowledged the platform largely provided 'slacktivist' opportunities — or low-effort ways to support social causes online. DoSomething was not meeting the desires of its 13- to 25-year-old audience for more lasting community change.
The nonprofit was founded in 1993 to boost youth volunteering. But Getachew said the 'new DoSomething' sees volunteerism as a 'step on the ladder' but not 'the top rung.'
She pointed to a new program called Talking Trash that does more than just encourage volunteers to collect and recycle plastic bottles. Through educational campaigns and microgrants for select projects, DoSomething prompts members to think more deeply about improving their communities' overall waste management infrastructure.
'We're their cheerleader,' she said. 'We're the person who has their back and are helping them figure out how they tap into that, at least initial, sense of curiosity about what they can do.'
Katelyn Knox, a 25-year-old former police officer, is part of the inaugural cohort of DoSomething 'binfluencers' who received $250 and peer support to improve local recycling systems. After moving from Florida to Los Angeles, Knox noticed many neighbors did not understand the guidelines for what is actually recyclable. Even if they did, she found that recycling bins were scarce.
She decided to design an app that identifies which recyclables go where and brings door-to-door recycling services to her community.
'It is very hard to make change. You have to convince so many people to make this change — especially people who are older than you,' Knox said. 'It's not so scary knowing that other people are with me and doing it right next to me in their own cities.'
DoSomething brought together Knox and Dean to record a video educating college students about broken recycling systems.
Dean, the environmental storyteller, said she's seen many young folks respond to overwhelming structural issues in one of two ways: accepting that they'll 'just have to learn to survive' or 'realizing that we can just really imagine a new system of being and governing.'
'A lot of us feel powerless at some point through all of this because there's many times where these systems make us feel like there is nothing we can do,' she said. 'I always just tell people to hold onto these heavy emotions because that is what moves you to take action and not feel so much like a victim.'
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman launched The Trust in American Institutions Challenge last December with philanthropic accelerator Lever for Change. The $10 million open call will scale local solutions to restore public confidence in anything from education and government to media and medicine.
Hoffman, a 57-year-old Democratic megadonor, finds that philanthropy offers more opportunities 'for beginning the trust stuff.' He said that's because there are no conflicting interests other than the mission.
The challenge is not focused solely on youth. Hoffman said that 'just about everybody' across the political spectrum can recognize society's trust issues. As he sees it, the problem isn't that institutions don't work for young people. They do work, according to Hoffman, and 'part of being young is learning that.' The idea, he added, 'is to reconnect and revivify.'
'We're like fish in water. We don't realize how important these institutions are to our ongoing environment,' Hoffman said. 'Revitalizing them is an important part of a society that works.'
Another effort is connecting youth representatives with decision-makers to help civic institutions reach new generations ahead of the United States' 250th anniversary.
Recognizing that today's teens and young adults are the ones who will inherit American democracy, Youth250 is passing the microphone to young people as the country reflects on its past and looks ahead to its future. Advisors are working with museums, historic sites and libraries to center Gen Z's perspectives.
Dillon St. Bernard, the 25-year-old Youth250 documentary series director, said the campaign 'is about turning representation into power.'
He emphasized the need to build intergenerational coalitions. Today's challenges — climate change, democracy and racial justice — haven't been solved by their predecessors, according to St. Bernard.
'We as a generation have known nothing but a house on fire and want to see what it would look like to stop that spread,' he said.
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Florida schools face alarming rise in student absences since pandemic
ORLANDO, Fla. — Ivan Flores didn't love school before the pandemic hit, but his views soured more when he did ninth grade online and off campus. 'I was just at home doing nothing, waking up late, missing assignments,' he said. When he resumed in-person classes at Evans High School in the 2021-22 school year, that habit stuck. His attendance was spotty and his classwork often undone. In tenth grade he estimated he missed nearly 60 days of school, or a third of the academic year. He is part of an alarming trend. Absenteeism across Florida skyrocketed beginning with that COVID-19 interlude — and, confounding experts' predictions and defying educators' hopes, it hasn't come back down. Nearly one million Florida students missed more than three weeks of school last year, a staggering number of chronically absent children undermining their academic success. In the 2018-19 school year, the last before the pandemic, about 20% of Florida's public school students missed 10% or more of the school year, meeting the state definition of chronically absent. That figure topped 32% the year after COVID shuttered schools and has barely inched down since — remaining above 31% in the 2023-34 school year, the latest year for which data is available, an analysis by the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel shows. Central Florida's schools counted more than 145,000 chronically absent students who missed 18 or more days out of that 180-day school year. Orlando's three downtown sports venues combined couldn't hold them all. Though 2024-25 attendance information is not yet available statewide, early data from Osceola and Seminole county schools shows some modest improvements but rates still well above pre-pandemic levels. Educators say the pandemic, which shuttered all Florida schools and forced students to study online, fundamentally broke some parents' and students' bonds with education. COVID-19 created new hardships especially for families living in poverty, and those challenges impacted their ability to get their children to school. But something less tangible shifted, too. The pandemic disrupted attendance habits, accustomed students to looser standards and convinced them in-person classes mattered less. 'Once they got comfortable with not going into that building, they got comfortable,' said Tequila Dillon, whose daughter ran into serious attendance problems at her Orange County high school before turning things around. Chronic absenteeism is a nationwide phenomenon, one that is fueling falling test scores in this state and others. But Florida so far has failed to take a comprehensive approach to the problem. Last year, Attendance Works, an education advocacy group, urged all 50 states to recognize absenteeism as the most crucial issue facing education and tackle it with an 'all-hands-on-deck approach' from the governor's office on down. Florida has not followed any of its recommendations, such as launching a statewide public awareness campaign, holding schools accountable for reducing absenteeism or publishing a real-time attendance dashboard. The state hasn't even adopted common measurements for tracking absent students. And when Attendance Works this year contacted all 50 states seeking their latest data and information on absenteeism, Florida was the only one that did not respond, according to the advocacy group's report released Tuesday. The state's indifference has left districts on their own, notching defeats and some small victories, like Ivan, who ultimately realized his behavior was undermining his future. 'This was little kid stuff,' the Valencia College student said of his former patterns. But there are not enough Ivans. The news organizations' analysis of attendance data since 2018 found that: •Absenteeism is most pronounced among high school students, with 37% of students missing a large amount of school in 2023-24, up from less than a quarter pre-pandemic. Chronic absenteeism also surged in elementary schools, from 18% to 28%, and in middle schools, from 18% to 31%. •Chronic absenteeism in Florida has gotten worse in 66 of the state's 67 counties. The only exception is Hendry County, a tiny district serving fewer than 8,000 kids in southwest Florida. •Absenteeism grew in all of the state's large metro areas, rising from 21% to 35% in Orange County, for example, from 29% to 45% in Duval County, from 19% to 31% in Hillsborough County and from 19% to 28% in Miami-Dade. •At schools where the majority of kids live in poverty, about 35% miss school regularly, compared to 19% for schools where fewer than a quarter live in poverty. At Leesburg High School in Lake County, about three-quarters of the students are economically disadvantaged and chronic absenteeism jumped from just over one-third in 2018-19 to almost 60% last year. But even in wealthier places, schools now wrestle with attendance problems far more often than before the pandemic struck in March 2020. Consider Oviedo High School in Seminole County, the region's most well-off county, where 13.5% of students were chronically absent before COVID-19. That rate has since doubled, sitting at 28.6% last year. The implications are vast. 'If the pandemic was an earthquake, the subsequent rise in absenteeism has been a tsunami that is continuing to disrupt learning,' said Thomas Kane, a professor of economics and education at Harvard University, in a Harvard publication posted in February. Math and reading test scores have dropped since the pandemic, and that can be linked to the large numbers of students who are chronically absent, said Kane, co-author of the Education Recovery Scorecard, which tracks how districts nationwide are recovering from COVID-19. Florida's middle schoolers posted their lowest reading and math scores in more than 20 years on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the 'nation's report card.' The state's fourth graders scored a 20-year low in reading. Florida high school seniors in 2024 posted the state's lowest SAT scores in a decade. Nationally, students also performed worse in 2024 on reading and math NAEP tests compared to before COVID-19. And across the country, chronic absenteeism almost doubled from 16% before the pandemic to about 28% during the 2022-23 school year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. Florida's nearly 34% chronic absenteeism rate for that school year ranked 40th nationally, meaning it performed better than only ten other states. To combat absenteeism, local educators say they have tried almost everything, from home visits to find out the why behind the absences to pep rallies and pizza parties that try to make school fun. They offer programs to help students catch up on missing work, partner with nonprofits to provide families with needed social services and sometimes use truancy courts to prod those with the worst attendance records to come to school regularly. They're making inroads, but progress can be slow. Janet Rosario and her daughter Jahlisha, the youngest of her five children, appeared in Orange County's truancy court last month, one of the regular hearings they must attend. That court, overseen by Magistrate Lisa Smith Bedwell, heard 128 cases this year where it can order counseling, community service, and even legal action. Jahlisha, a student at Sally Ride Elementary School in Taft, entered the truancy court system after she missed about 50 days of school during both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years. She's missed more than 20 days during the just-finished school year, an improvement but still a serious problem. Talking with Janet Rosario conveys the depth of the attendance challenge. Until March when they moved into an apartment, Rosario, her husband and their children were living out of Central Florida hotel rooms, with the seven-person family often crammed into one room with two beds. Rosario said the family doesn't own a car, so their transportation challenges coupled with her long work hours at a restaurant and the family's housing problems sometimes meant school attendance wasn't top priority. Two of Rosario's other children are in truancy court too. That May afternoon in the hearing room, Jahlisha sat next to her mother with a pair of headphones around her neck. She said little but exchanged smiles with the court's bailiff when she walked in. Rosario explained to Bedwell why Jahlisha had missed three more days of school since their last hearing: a stomach bug going around the family. 'You can see it in her eyes … she's not 100% today,' Rosario said to the magistrate. She also told Bedwell that she hoped that the family's constant moves were over and that Jahlisha would be in school regularly in the coming academic year. Rosario told a reporter later that she knows it is important for her children to be in school, and she worries when they are not. 'Why do you want to have them locked up in a hotel? They think too much. They're stuck in four walls, and they just look around,' Rosario said. Across Central Florida, school officials labor to translate realizations like Rosario's into better performance. Kelly Maldonado, principal of Forsyth Woods Elementary School in Azalea Park, visits four or five of her students at their homes every week, trying to figure out why they're missing so much school. All of Forsyth Woods' students are from economically disadvantaged families. Before COVID-19, about 22% of its student body missed 10% of the school year. Last year, 38% were absent that often. Maldonado once visited the family of a first-grader who had missed more than 150 days of school since kindergarten. The student's father had passed away, the mother was struggling with her mental health, and the child had moved in with their grandparents, who weren't bringing him to school. The mother felt ashamed that her son had missed so much school. 'I just gave Mom a hug, and I said, 'No one's here to judge, no one's here to place blame. We just want the baby in school. We just need him to come back to school.'' she said. The student returned the next day, and has only missed 10 days of school in the last four years, something Maldonado calls her 'greatest success story' as a principal. The bottom line: 'If they're not here, if they're not sitting in that classroom, they cannot learn,' she said. At Central Avenue Elementary School in Kissimmee, Amber Blondman spends her days trying to reach the families of absent students. All the school's students are from low-income families and the percentage of chronically absent students hit 44% last year, up from 34% before the pandemic. But families struggling financially often change addresses and cellphone providers, making them hard to track down. Blondman, who oversees the campus' attendance efforts, estimates she gets one response for every seven phone calls, emails and texts she sends to parents. When she does reach families, she often learns of serious struggles. And sometimes, Blondman finds a child who just doesn't want to come to school — and a parent who doesn't force the issue. One of the school's kindergartners this year racked up almost 60 unexcused absences by March. She didn't like school, her mother told Blondman, because she fell on the playground back in August. Blondman and other school staff met with the mother and daughter, stressing the importance of daily attendance and suggesting a way to change the 5-year-old's attitude. 'We created a plan where, if she came to school every day for a week, on Friday, mom would take her out to ice cream,' Blondman said. 'It made her want to come to school.' At Evans High School in Pine Hills, Tequila Dillon's daughter liked school before the pandemic hit, but the Orange teenager's time doing online classes changed things. Jon'Tayasia Dillon-White returned to campus as a 10th grader, but most days she skipped, with her grades plummeting as a result. She fooled her mother for a while, telling her on many mornings she was getting ready for school but going back to bed as soon as her mother left for work. 'I didn't want to listen to my mom,' the teenager said. 'I didn't want to get up and go to school.' When someone from Evans knocked on their door, Dillon learned how many school days Jon'Tayasia had missed and that both of them could be headed to truancy court. Evans offers a noon-to-5 p.m. catch-up program for students, one that predates the pandemic but has proved crucial since. It is a way, administrators say, to reconnect students to Evans High in a smaller setting with a schedule more appealing to those constantly skipping. In that program, Jon'Tayasia made up missing work and by last May had earned enough credits to graduate. Evans High, where almost all students are from low-income families, has knocked down its chronic absentee rate in the past few years but it was still at 55% last year, meaning almost 1,500 students skipped at least three weeks of classes. That's an improvement from the 2021-22 school year when it topped 67%, but far above the 45% rate before COVID. Kenya Nelson-Warren, Evans' principal, said she's open to almost any tactic to combat attendance problems, even if that means heading to a nearby fast-food restaurant. There she and a dean sometimes look for students who, after they've been dutifully dropped off by their parents, have walked off campus. 'This is not Evans High School,' Nelson-Warren will shout to the teenagers hanging out or sleeping at the restaurant's tables. 'You aren't learning here at McDonald's.' During the pandemic, when all classes went online, students could find assignments and class resources on their laptops. Now, some think they can do whatever work their teachers post, and that means being in class is optional, she said. But missing class means they miss instruction, practice and discussion — and that makes it hard to fully learn the material, particularly in math, where students lost the most ground because of COVID interruptions. 'You're trying to complete the assignment blindly,' Nelson-Warren added. Schools' efforts to combat absenteeism matter, but so does a state's, said Hedy Chang, executive director and founder of Attendance Works. 'State leadership to reduce chronic absence is crucial to ensure that all schools and districts, not just a few innovators, have the tools and skills to support excellent attendance,' she said in a statement released with the group's recent report. State Rep. Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce, sponsored bills this year and last that would have been a small step toward that goal for Florida, requiring common standards for measuring absenteeism. Currently, each school district can decide how many hours of a school day students can miss and still be counted as present. 'We can't allow them to be the lost generation,' Trabulsy said after the 2024 legislative session. But her proposed legislation never got out of committee last year and this year, though it passed unanimously in the House, it died in the Senate, which never took it up. Senate leaders view attendance as a local matter best tackled by school districts, said Katie Betta, a spokeswoman for the Senate president's office. 'There is no question that absenteeism is a problem, but the question is whether interventions and solutions should be determined at the district level, or dictated from Tallahassee,' she said. 'The Senate has generally taken the position that individual school districts know their communities best and are better able to design, implement, and maintain their own policies.' Experts question that approach. Kane, the Harvard researcher, agrees with Attendance Works that state and local governments should do more. He suggests making absenteeism a public cause. 'Most mayors can't teach algebra one, but they could do a public information campaign,' he said. Indiana, he said, posts a regularly updated attendance dashboard on its education department website. The state's legislature also just passed a law requiring the Indiana Department of Education to study absenteeism, collect data on the reasons students are missing school and publish the information each year. Last year, Indiana's chronic absenteeism rate dropped to below 18%, its lowest mark since the pandemic, though still above the about 11% rate it had in 2019. Ivan's attendance record turned around after he was offered a place in Evans' noon-to-5.p.m. program and encouraged to consider the offerings at the local technical college. A welding class intrigued him. Soon missing so many school days stopped making sense. Ivan graduated from Evans in May 2024 and then enrolled in Valencia's welding technology program. He is slated to graduate from the college program at the end of this month. 'I needed to calm down,' he said. 'I was getting too old.' ------------
Hamilton Spectator
41 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam's Eid al-Adha holiday
MUWASI, Gaza Strip (AP) — With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays. To mark Eid al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice — Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes. But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war . And nearly all the territory's homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives. Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza's Mediterranean coast. But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday. 'I can't even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,' said Abdel Rahman Madi. 'The prices are astronomical.' The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts. But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago. At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices. 'Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there's no flour, no clothes, no joy,' said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. 'We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.' Israel's campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza's ability to feed itself. The U.N. says 96% of the livestock and 99% of the poultry are dead. More than 95% of Gaza's prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the U.N. to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the U.N. says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions. Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives. Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah — from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis — to find some possessions she'd left behind. She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts. 'I can't buy them clothes or anything,' the 38-year-old said. 'I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can't bring meat, and I can't even feed the girls with bread.' Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes. Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid al-Fitr, two times each under the war. 'During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.' — Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam's Eid al-Adha holiday
MUWASI, Gaza Strip (AP) — With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays. To mark Eid al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice -- Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes. But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. And nearly all the territory's homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives. Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza's Mediterranean coast. But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday. 'I can't even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,' said Abdel Rahman Madi. 'The prices are astronomical.' The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts. But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago. At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices. 'Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there's no flour, no clothes, no joy,' said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. 'We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.' Israel's campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza's ability to feed itself. The U.N. says 96% of the livestock and 99% of the poultry are dead. More than 95% of Gaza's prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the U.N. to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the U.N. says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions. Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives. Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah -- from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis -- to find some possessions she'd left behind. She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts. 'I can't buy them clothes or anything,' the 38-year-old said. 'I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can't bring meat, and I can't even feed the girls with bread.' Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes. Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid al-Fitr, two times each under the war. 'During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.' — Chehayeb reported from Beirut.
