According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the latest death toll has exceeded 41,000 people – most of them women and children – while most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been forcibly displaced and trapped in just 10 percent of the territory. but in this grim situation, new initiatives aim to radiate even the smallest ray of light amid the darkness of war.
In the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, teacher Mahmoud Kallakh set up a camp with the aim of providing some assistance to families who had lost their husbands and breadwinners.
The Al-Baraka orphanage camp currently houses 400 Palestinian families displaced to this area in southern Gaza. In an interview with our Gaza correspondent Ziad Taleb, Mr Kallakh said the initiative is working to provide care to families in what he described as an “orphanage town”, including shelter, food and drink, medical care in addition to educational and social services. , with assistance, including from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“We have a special medical center and a school sponsored by the United Nations, through UNICEF, which fortunately provided the necessary resources for the school, embraced students, provided them with stationery and paid teachers’ salaries,” said Mr Kallakh. “We want to fully establish this school, replacing these small tents, to create a more comfortable environment for students to pursue their education.”
UN News/Ziad Taleb
Taleen Al-Hinnawi lost her father as a result of the war in Gaza and now lives in the Al-Baraka orphanage.
More than 17,000 orphans in Gaza
The number of children cared for here is just a drop in the sea of orphans in Gaza who need protection. The number of unprotected orphans in Gaza now ranges between 17,000 and 18,000, many of whom are unaccompanied by family members.
Taleen Al-Hinnawi lost her father as a result of the war and tries to adapt to her new life in the Al-Baraka orphanage camp. Signs of shock and sadness filled her face as she spoke UN newswho told us about her father.
“Baba (Arabic for father) was very affectionate,” she said. “I don’t feel like Baba was tortured.”
The young girl’s outlook on life has completely changed.
The war seeks to “wipe out entire families,” she said.
Taleen said she wanted to return to her home in Gaza City “so that life can return to normal, study like everyone else and memorize the Quran like everyone else. Before that we lived in our house. We never bothered anyone and kept to ourselves.”
UN News/Ziad Taleb
Nada Al-Gharib lost her father and only brother in an attack on the family tent, which also injured her and her mother.
‘We have lost them’
“This war has taken my father and my only brother from me.”
With these words, the young Nada Al-Gharib began to tell her story. She and her mother were also injured in the attack on the tent where the family was sheltering in Khan Younis. They were inside for three days.
Nada said her family was driven from northern Gaza to Khan Younis “because the occupation demanded it of us.”
“We came here, we were stuck. My father and my only brother were tortured, and my mother and I were injured,” she explained.
UN News/Ziad Taleb
A large crater caused by an Israeli airstrike struck a makeshift camp for displaced persons in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in Gaza.
‘We are here as brothers and sisters’
After managing to leave the tent, Nada and her mother went to the industrial area west of Khan Younis, where they were treated and re-detained. They passed through Israeli checkpoints, she recalled, as they entered Rafah, where they also fled, and eventually ended up at the Al-Baraka orphanage.
She and her mother have found a second home in this camp, she says, “because everyone around us has the same story and the same pain.”
“We’re like brothers and sisters here,” she said. “All mothers are like our mothers, and all children are our brothers and sisters. We love each other very much here. We love our lives. Even though it is difficult and the loss (of our loved ones) is hard for us, we try to live for them.”
Nada said her father was a wonderful, kind man who loved his family very much.
“He would never make us do anything difficult,” she said. “Now things are difficult. We have to get water and do things that men are supposed to do, but we have no other choice because we have lost them.”
© UNFPA Palestine/Media Clinic
As the war in Gaza continues, mass displacement is having a devastating impact on women and girls.
Escalating hostilities
UNICEF says the escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip is having a catastrophic impact on children and families, with children dying at an alarming rate. According to estimates by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 14,000 children have been killed and thousands of others have been injured.
An estimated 1.9 million people – about 9 in 10 Gazans – are internally displaced, more than half of them children, without adequate water, food, fuel and medicine.
The UN agency calls for an immediate and lasting humanitarian ceasefire, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to all children and families in need in Gaza, including in the northern Gaza Strip, the immediate, safe and unconditional release of all abducted children and an end to serious violations against children, including murder and mutilation.