The number of orphans in Gaza left without protection and support is estimated to be between 17,000 and 18,000. Gaza’s ‘Orphan City’ Helps Children Survive Peace and Security
In the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in Gaza, a local school teacher has set up an orphanage to bring some relief to families who have lost their breadwinners.
The Al-Baraka shelter camp is currently home to approximately 400 Palestinian families displaced to the area from other parts of Gaza. Orphan City founder Mahmoud Kallah told UN News that the initiative provides families with shelter, food, safe water, medical care, and educational and social services, with the assistance of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“We have a specialized medical center and a school sponsored by the United Nations,” Kallah said. “UNICEF has provided all the necessary resources for the school, supplies for the students, and pays the teachers’ salaries. We want to fully equip this school and create a better environment for education.”
Gaza Orphans
Children who are receiving help in this orphanage, is just a drop in the ocean of children’s misery in Gaza. It is estimated that there are between 17,000 and 18,000 orphans in the Strip who are left without protection and support. Many of them have no relatives at all.
Taleen al-Hinnawi, who lost her father in the war, is trying to adjust to her new life in the camp. Her face will probably forever be marked with shock and sadness.
“Baba [Arabic for “father”] was very kind and gentle,” she says. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
Talin hopes to return to her home in Gaza City one day: “I want life to return to normal, so I can go back to school like everyone else and read the Koran. Before, we lived in our own house. We didn’t bother anyone and kept to ourselves.”
Trapped
“The war took my father and my only brother.” With these words, young Nada al-Gharib began her story. She and her mother were injured in an explosion outside the tent where the family was sheltering in Khan Younis. They remained trapped under the rubble for three days.
Nada says her family was relocated from northern Gaza to Khan Younis because “the occupation demanded it.”
“We came here and we were trapped,” she explains. “My father and only brother were killed, and my mother and I were injured.”
After escaping the rubble-strewn tent, Nada and her mother traveled to an industrial area west of Khan Younis, where they received medical treatment. They then passed through several Israeli checkpoints and eventually settled in the al-Baraka orphanage camp.
Nada says the orphanage has become a second home for her and her mother: “Everyone here shares the same story and the same pain.”
“We are like brothers and sisters here,” she says. “All the mothers here are like my mother. We love each other very much. We try to love our new lives. And although it is hard for us to lose our loved ones, we try to live for each other.”
Remembering her father, Nada says that he never allowed her to do hard work: “It’s very difficult without him. We have to go and fetch water, do the work that men usually do. But we have no other choice because we have lost our loved ones.”
Young Victims of War
UNICEF emphasizes that the escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip has a catastrophic impact on children and children are dying more often than others. According to estimates by the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 14,000 children have died since the beginning of the conflict, and thousands more have been injured. Nearly two million people – about nine out of ten Gazans – have been displaced, half of them children, who lack access to safe water, food and health care.
UNICEF calls for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, rapid, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to all children in need and their families in Gaza, the unconditional release of all abducted children and an end to all grave violations against them, including killing and maiming.