Childhood outside the rules of war in Gaza

Childhood in the Gaza Strip is incredibly brutal. Children throughout Gaza, subjected to bombardment and displacement, have been deprived of safe spaces to play. Public gardens, amusement parks and school grounds have been destroyed by the ongoing military operations in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of around 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The innocence of children creates a need for plentiful distractions and reassurances to allay their fears, especially in the context of Israel’s aggression on the strip and the displacement it begets. Yet children displaced to Rafah have no alternatives to playing amid the fallout of war; the conditions for playtime in the rest of the world do not exist here. The bombed ruins of homes form a backdrop to children’s games — playing with marbles, sand and the strewn remnants of former structures and their furnishings. Vendors make their way through the destroyed areas, tending to the children’s psychological wounds with cotton candy.

In the few open spaces among the tents in Rafah, youth play soccer and volleyball, offering some respite from the daily scenes of displacement. Some children make kites with old paper to fly in Gaza’s sky, constantly speckled with buzzing Israeli drones. Displaced children residing in tents near the Egyptian border have salvaged swings from the ruins to fly high, their faces filled with joy. They play with empty aid food cans, spilling into them the negative energy of the Israeli aggression’s tragedies.