On Palestinian Child's Day.. 64,616 Orphaned Children in the Strip

Gaza - "Al-Quds" Dot Com - (WAFA) - The Ministry of Social Development in the Gaza Strip revealed shocking figures, as the number of children who lost one or both parents rose to 64,616 children. This number represents a huge leap from the 17,000 orphans registered before the start of the war waged by the Israeli occupation on the Gaza Strip in October 2023.The ministry indicates that "these children live in unprecedented humanitarian conditions, facing challenges that go beyond parental loss, including forced displacement, loss of shelter, disruption of health and educational services, and a severe shortage of food and medicine."In one of the scattered tents on the sands of Al-Mawasi, south of the Gaza Strip, seven-year-old child Ola Abu Jameh starts her day by drawing a house she once had and innocently murmuring: "My train, my train, take me home."That house no longer exists in eastern Khan Yunis; Israeli shelling leveled it to the ground, along with everyone in it: the father, mother, and two siblings. Today, the child lives with her sick grandmother.She is not alone in this fate; she is one of more than 64,000 Palestinian children who have lost one or both parents since the start of the war on Gaza three years ago, as Gaza's children face a completely different reality: a reality of loss, displacement, illness, and slow death.In one of the scattered tents on the sands of Al-Mawasi, south of the Gaza Strip, seven-year-old child Ola Abu Jameh starts her day by drawing a house she once had and innocently murmuring: "My train, my train, take me home."That house no longer exists in eastern Khan Yunis; Israeli shelling leveled it to the ground, along with everyone in it: the father, mother, and two siblings. Today, the child lives with her sick grandmother.She is not alone in this fate; she is one of more than 64,000 Palestinian children who have lost one or both parents since the start of the war on Gaza three years ago, as Gaza's children face a completely different reality: a reality of loss, displacement, illness, and slow death.Child Aya Al-Najjar, who lost her father in the bombing of their home in Khan Yunis city, south of the Gaza Strip, recounts in a childish voice heavy with bitterness: "We had a home, we lived there and were happy, we laughed and played. Suddenly, when the war came, our house was bombed and my father was martyred, everything changed."She adds with a bitterness befitting a ten-year-old: "Children around the world live safely with their parents. My father was martyred, and I wish to live in peace with my mother and siblings, to have a home, and to feel safe."The numbers are even harsher when we look at the scale of human losses. By February 2026, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced the martyrdom of 21,289 children since the start of the war, in addition to more than 44,500 injured.Among the martyrs, there are 274 newborns and 876 infants under one year old, according to data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.When we asked 12-year-old Celine Saeed about her dreams, she didn't talk about playing or traveling, but about a school desk. "The best thing is to sit in class and see the teacher and the blackboard, and hold a pen again."Celine is one of the lucky ones. She enrolled in one of the schools, which are tent classrooms in displacement centers in the southern Gaza Strip. These schools barely cover a small part of the needs of more than 700,000 children deprived of formal education due to the occupation's war on the Gaza Strip.UNICEF estimates that about 90% of schools in Gaza have been damaged or completely destroyed during the Israeli aggression on Gaza.In a rare humanitarian scene, 11 premature babies returned to the Gaza Strip in March 2026, after spending more than two years away from their families, following their evacuation from Al-Shifa Hospital in November 2023 during its storming by the Israeli army.These children, who were born in harsh conditions and whose incubators had their electricity cut off by the occupation, were transferred to Egypt to receive medical care, without their families knowing their fate for many months.One of these children is "Sham" (two years old), whom her mother, Rawand Al-Wadiya, embraced for the first time since her birth. The mother says: "It's an indescribable feeling the moment I saw my daughter. I had been waiting for her for a long time. My tears did not stop, as if a part of my heart had returned after a long absence."Even infants were not spared the effects of the war. Health data showed that one in five newborns needs intensive care due to low birth weight, resulting from maternal malnutrition, chronic stress, and poor health care during pregnancy.As for 12-year-old Adam Shaqaliya, he experienced repeated displacement: "We were displaced from the north to Khan Yunis, then we returned to the north, and after that, we were displaced to the south again. Every time we reach a place, an evacuation order comes from the occupation. We pack our belongings and leave. There is no stability, and no place where we feel safe."It is worth noting that more than 1.9 million people in the Gaza Strip have been displaced, most of them multiple times, under intense Israeli shelling of their homes and cities and evacuation orders issued by the occupation to head to areas west of the Strip, forcing them to live in dilapidated tents and overcrowded schools, suffering from severe hunger, a shortage of clean water, and the spread of diseases such as hepatitis and skin diseases. They have been cut off from the most basic necessities of life: electricity, medicine, and dignity, and many have lost their children due to cold, shelling, or malnutrition, while their suffering worsens day by day due to poor living conditions.Elementary school student Reem Moussa summarizes the suffering of an entire generation by saying: "Instead of standing in the morning queue at school, I now stand in the soup kitchen queue to get food. I wish I could be like children around the world. I learn, I play, I have toys. And I don't wait every day for food or water."In addition, medical figures alone are not enough to describe the psychological state of Gaza's children. A report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) describes what is happening as a "deep mental health emergency."According to the fund's data, 96% of children in Gaza feel that death is imminent, while about 61% of adolescents and youth suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, 38% suffer from depression, and 41% suffer from anxiety.Mohammed Zaaroub, a displaced child in Al-Mawasi, Khan Yunis, says with great sadness: "I was seven years old when our house turned into a pile of stones when occupation planes bombed it. I lost my father, mother, and younger sister under the rubble, and I only found my torn doll among the dust. Every night I dream that they are returning, then I wake up to the sound of planes and bullets. I no longer fear death, but I fear forgetting their faces."The Ministry of Social Development called for "urgent intervention from local and international institutions, with a focus on monthly orphan care, rebuilding destroyed childhood facilities, and providing intensive psychological support programs."However, with the occupation's continued closure of crossings and restriction of aid entry, these calls remain captive to reality. Gaza's children do not only need a day to be remembered, but a future to live in where they feel safe.Behind every child in Gaza is a story. A story of a postponed dream, a lost home, and a departed father. But despite all this, these children still hold onto their kites, raising their arms to the sky, insisting on life.It is worth noting that on April 5, 1995, during the first Palestinian Child Conference, the late President Yasser Arafat announced the State of Palestine's commitment to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, making this date immortalized in the memory of generations as Palestinian Child's Day.This anniversary comes this year while the Israeli occupation machine continues its killing and war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023.