Injured, hungry and alone – the Gazan children orphaned by war
A newborn baby whose mother did not live long enough to name her
Yolande Knell reports in BBC News on 31 January 2024:
Born amid the horrors of the war in Gaza, the month-old baby girl lying in an incubator has never known a parent’s embrace. She was delivered by Caesarean section after her mother, Hanna, was crushed in an Israeli air strike. Hanna did not live to name her daughter. “We just call her the daughter of Hanna Abu Amsha,” says nurse Warda al-Awawda, who is caring for the tiny newborn at the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
In the chaos caused by the ongoing fighting and with entire families almost wiped out, medics and rescuers often struggle to find carers for bereaved children. “We have lost contact with her family,” the nurse tells us. “None of her relatives have shown up and we don’t know what happened to her father.”
Children, who make up nearly half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, have had their lives shattered by the brutal war. Although Israel says it strives to avoid civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation orders, more than 11,500 under-18s have been killed according to Palestinian health officials. Even more have injuries, many of them life-changing. It is hard to get accurate figures but according to a recent report from Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a non-profit group, more than 24,000 children have also lost one or both parents.
Ibrahim Abu Mouss, just 10 years old, suffered severe leg and stomach injuries when a missile hit his home. But his tears are for his dead mum, grandfather and sister. “They kept telling me they were being treated upstairs in the hospital,” says Ibrahim as his father clutches his hand. “But I found out the truth when I saw photos on my dad’s phone. I cried so much that I hurt all over.”
The cousins of the Hussein family used to play together but now they sit solemnly by the sandy graves where some of their relatives are buried by a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza. Each has lost one or both parents. “The missile fell on my mum’s lap and her body was torn into pieces. For days we were taking her body parts from the rubble of the house,” says Abed Hussein, who lived in al-Bureij refugee camp.