When I was woken up in the middle of the night on Tuesday by the roar of airstrikes and blaring ambulance sirens, I quickly realised that, once again, Israeli forces were unleashing hell on Gaza. It was a night of terror, but one that is all too familiar for Gaza’s children and families after 16 months of war. A reported 174 children were killed – one of the largest child death tolls in a single day.
Events have escalated rapidly since then. The attacks persist, and Gaza is once again divided. The Israeli military has imposed restrictions, blocking access to northern Gaza from the south. More than 50 of my colleagues in the north now confront the choice of staying to face tanks and bullets or leaving their homes with barely a moment to process their losses.
This resurgence of violence is a devastating setback for families who had just begun to find hope after an eight-week pause in the bombardment. Many had returned to the north to see what was left of their homes. Parents were starting to get treatment for their malnourished children and focus on their own health. For the first time in a long while, people could grieve their lost loved ones – moments they had missed while simply trying to survive.
I arrived in Gaza shortly after the pause in hostilities took effect on 19 January. I felt a whirlwind of emotions: gratitude for the chance to make a difference, but also a deep fear that the pause could collapse at any moment. I had prepared myself for the worst. The images from Gaza flooding social media had been horrific, but the reality on the ground was even worse. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. As I arrived, the bus we were on drove through a sea of rubble – nothing was left standing. No buildings. Just endless destruction.
How can the world allow this to happen? Entire families wiped out. Parents burying their children; others unable to even do that because their children are buried under rubble. Aid workers killed. Hospitals and schools destroyed. Health professionals forced to treat the injured without basic supplies. The headlines of the past 16 months showed that my government – the UK government – along with other western leaders, stood by, complicit in the suffering. I never knew politics could be so cold, so indifferent to human life.
What struck me the most were the children. These children had no shoes, no coats, no protection from the bitter weather. Despite everything, there was a strange kind of resilience. They laughed, they played and they ran barefoot through the rubble. I tried to convince myself that maybe they had found a way to live amid the nightmare.
For the past six weeks, I have spent time speaking to families supported by Save the Children. I have heard heartbreaking stories. Every family I have met has been displaced, some up to 20 times. They have all faced food shortages. Some children have lost up to 15kg in weight due to relentless hunger. Some have been forced to eat animal feed just to survive. Some are so traumatised from the sight of death and losing loved ones that they suffer involuntary urination or scream out during nightmares. Families have lost everything they once owned.
Some felt hopeless, believing that Gaza would never be the same again. One mother said, “Look at the destruction. How can it ever be rebuilt?” Yet there were those who remained strong, with optimism that was contagious. One man said to me, “What is life if we don’t have hope?” Another mother told me, “We will rebuild Gaza. Our children will make it better than ever.”
I believed her when I met two sisters supported through Save the Children’s education programme. With everything collapsing around them, they still dared to dream. Their smiles radiated hope, and their eyes lit up with excitement as they spoke of their aspirations. A few days later, I met a nine-year-old girl in the same programme. A shrapnel wound had destroyed part of her skull, leaving only a dressing and a bandage around her exposed brain. Her parents were desperate to have her evacuated for medical care that doesn’t exist in Gaza. Initially, doctors told them her chances of survival were slim, and if she did survive she would probably be paralysed and unable to speak. It’s almost unbelievable, then, that she walks, demonstrates incredible intelligence and speaks with confidence. She wants to be a teacher, so she can teach others how to rebuild Gaza.
These girls, along with thousands of other children and their families, live in ill-equipped tents, with only the bare minimum for survival. Humanitarian aid stopped entering Gaza at the start of this month, and families are again being pushed to the brink. Now, it is the holy month of Ramadan, a time when Muslims gather with family and loved ones. For a second year, people in Gaza have set up empty seats around makeshift tables.
As war resumes, so does the death sentence for Gaza’s children. A ceasefire is the only way to shield them from further physical and mental devastation. No child should ever have to look into their parents’ eyes and beg: “Promise me I won’t die.” No child should ever have to sift through ruins, desperately searching for the lifeless bodies of the ones they loved. No child should ever feel so abandoned, so unseen, that they believe their life holds no value at all.
The UK government has to do better than this. It must not be an ally to further atrocities. Every moment of inaction is another moment where hope slips further away. I have asked countless families what message they would send to the world if they could. The answer has simply been that they want to live. This is not only a call for help. It is a plea for the most basic of human rights: the right to live without fear.
Shaima Al-Obaidi is a senior media manager at Save the Children UK, specialising in reporting on children impacted by conflict. She has previously been deployed to Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan and is currently on a deployment in Gaza
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