What future awaits Gaza's children under airstrikes and aid embargo?

Arab News

2 days ago

DUBAI: 'Where is the world?' That was the chilling closing caption shared by 11-year-old Yaqeen Hammad in one of the final videos she posted on social media, just days before she was killed on May 23 by an Israeli airstrike on Deir Al-Balah in Gaza.
Yaqeen's story has been thrown into particular focus this week as the world marks International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression on June 4, a reminder not only of those lost but of the futures stolen.
As Gaza's youngest social media influencer, Yaqeen was known for the uplifting videos she created and her work alongside her brother at Ouena, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to humanitarian relief and development.
Yaqeen's followers will remember her for her infectious optimism and volunteer work with displaced families. Just days before she died, she posted survival tips to help others endure life under siege.
Now she has become a haunting symbol of the toll the war between Israel and Hamas is taking on young people.
More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since the latest conflict began, according to the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF. Thousands more have been orphaned or displaced by the ongoing violence.
Israeli authorities launched military operations in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, during which 1,200 people were killed, the majority of them civilians, and about 250 were taken hostage, many of them non-Israelis.
Despite repeated international efforts to broker a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the ruling authority in Gaza, the continuing conflict has devastated the Palestinian enclave, creating one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
For those children who survive long enough to see an enduring ceasefire, what kind of future awaits them?
'We are losing a generation before our eyes, condemning patients to die from hunger, disease and despair — deaths that could have been prevented,' American trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa told the UN Security Council on May 28.
He delivered a searing account of what he witnessed during two volunteer missions in Gaza, the first in 2024, the second in March and April this year, at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. Sidhwa said he has worked in several conflict zones, including Haiti and Ukraine, but nothing compared to what he witnessed in Gaza.
'I operated in hospitals without sterility, electricity or anesthetics,' he told council members. 'Children died, not because their injuries were unsurvivable but because we lacked blood, antibiotics and the most basic supplies.'
He stressed that during his five weeks in Gaza he had not treated a single combatant.
'Most of my patients were preteen children, their bodies shattered by explosions and torn by flying metal,' he said, describing six-year-old patients with bullets in their brains, and pregnant women whose pelvises had been shattered by airstrikes.
'Civilians are now dying not just from constant airstrikes, but from acute malnutrition, sepsis, exposure and despair,' he added, noting that in the time between his two visits he had observed a sharp decline in the general health of patients, many of whom were too weak to heal as a result of hunger.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, almost 71,000 cases of acute malnutrition, including 14,100 severe cases, are expected in Gaza between April 2025 and March 2026. As of May 29 this year, about 470,000 people in Gaza were facing imminent famine, the UN said, and the entire population was suffering from severe food insecurity. One in five children under the age of 5 years old is severely malnourished, and more than 92 percent of infants and pregnant or breastfeeding women are not receiving adequate nutrition.
Despite global pressure on Israeli authorities to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, access for relief workers remains limited. The UN Relief and Works Agency said deliveries are sporadic and some areas are unreachable as a result of fighting.
The day after Yaqeen was killed, Gaza was struck by another tragedy. On May 24, an Israeli airstrike hit the home of Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, a pediatrician in Khan Younis who had long devoted her life to saving children, while she was on duty treating the wounded at Nasser Medical Complex.
Nine of her 10 children were killed in the blast. The youngest was just 7 months old, the eldest only 12. Her husband Hamdi, also a doctor, and their 11-year-old son, Adam, were pulled from the rubble with critical injuries. Hamdi died in hospital on May 31.
The Israel Defense Force said in response to initial reports of the strike that 'an aircraft struck several suspects identified by IDF forces as operating in a building near troops in the Khan Younis area, a dangerous combat zone that had been evacuated of civilians in advance for their protection. The claim of harm to uninvolved individuals is being reviewed.'
Two days later, another child's face captured the attention of the world. Ward Jalal Al-Sheikh Khalil, 7, emerged from the flames alone when Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School in Gaza City, a shelter for displaced families, was hit by an Israeli airstrike on May 26.
Her mother and two siblings were killed and her father is fighting for his life. In a now-viral video, Ward whispers through tears: 'There was a shooting and all my siblings died.'
The Israeli military and Shin Bet, the country's internal security service, issued a statement about the bombing of the school, in which they claimed the strike had targeted a compound used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
'The command and control center was used by the terrorists to plan and gather intelligence in order to execute terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,' the army said. 'Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.'
Illustrations of a little girl surrounded by flames, inspired by Ward's escape from the school, quickly spread across social media, capturing the sense of grief and outrage over the suffering of children in Gaza.
(Source: UNICEF)
'In a 72-hour period this weekend, images from two horrific attacks provide yet more evidence of the unconscionable cost of this ruthless war on children in the Gaza Strip,' UNICEF's regional director, Edouard Beigbeder, said on May 27.
'On Friday, we saw videos of the bodies of burnt, dismembered children from the Al-Najjar family being pulled from the rubble of their home in Khan Younis. Of 10 siblings under 12 years old, only one reportedly survived, with critical injuries.
'Early Monday, we saw images of a small child trapped in a burning school in Gaza City. That attack, in the early hours of the morning, reportedly killed at least 31 people, including 18 children.
'These children — lives that should never be reduced to numbers — are now part of a long, harrowing list of unimaginable horrors: the grave violations against children, the blockade of aid, the starvation, the constant forced displacement, and the destruction of hospitals, water systems, schools and homes. In essence, the destruction of life itself in the Gaza Strip.'
Beyond the physical destruction, an invisible crisis is escalating. According to the War Child Alliance, nearly half of children in Gaza now exhibit suicidal thoughts as a result of the sheer weight of grief, trauma and loss. Aid workers report children as young as 5 years old asking why they survived when their siblings, parents or even entire families did not.
During his address to the UN Security Council, Dr. Sidhwa described the despair he witnessed among young patients during his time in Gaza, and asked: 'I wonder if any member of this council has ever met a 5-year-old who no longer wants to live — let alone imagined a society in which so many young children feel that way.
'What astonishes me is not that some children in Gaza have lost the will to live, but that any still cling to hope.'
Mental health professionals warn that many children in the territory display symptoms of complex trauma, including persistent nightmares, bed-wetting, social withdrawal, and panic attacks triggered by the sound of planes or ambulances.
But with even the most immediate, basic means of survival out of reach for many in Gaza, mental health support remains a more distant concern, leaving an entire generation to navigate profound psychological scars alone.
'How many more dead girls and boys will it take?' asked Beigbeder, the UNICEF chief. 'What level of horror must be livestreamed before the international community fully steps up, uses its influence, and takes bold, decisive action to force the end of this ruthless killing of children?'