Few things are as moving as the fate of children in war. They cannot be accused of terrorism. They are punished for the mistakes of others. Children in the Gaza Strip are dying under the rubble of houses, standing in line for water, from illness or simply from hunger. One day shows how fragile existence is in a place where you can simultaneously see life, death and brief moments of childish joy. Material from CNN. The video contains drastic images.
Despite what they have seen in recent months, they came to a puppet show at a makeshift puppet theatre. Cans, cardboard and a piece of string are meant to distract them for a moment. During the show, they can build relationships with children who have been through the same thing as them. “I live only for my siblings and parents. Here, I stop thinking about everything that is on my mind. I watch the show and have fun with others,” she says. 12-year-old Hala.
It's a surreal scene, but it can seem like life goes on in the war in Gaza. Much of it, unfortunately, is a tragedy.
In the same area where the puppet show is taking place, wounded children are being taken to one of the last functioning hospitals. More and more victims of Israeli airstrikes are still arriving. Among them is a seriously wounded child who ends up on the floor due to the lack of beds. The boy's cries are drowned out by the din of the emergency room. No one from his family is with him. No one knows his name. During this war, thousands of children like him have been brought to the hospital wounded.
Gaza Strip. Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan lost his family in an Israeli strikeReuters
Mohammad was 9 years old, Kamal was three.
Outside, another ambulance brings another boy. He's taken straight to the morgue. His father says it wasn't the bombs that killed him, it was starvation. As they prepare him for burial, his emaciated, naked body lies for the world to see what Israel's siege has done to Gaza's most vulnerable.
– Put us in a safe place and then fight as much as you want. I wish God would take us all and let us follow this child. Now I am somehow holding on, but when I get out of here, I will probably break down. Maybe I pretend to be strong, but inside I can't take it anymore – confesses Jaber Abu Kaloub, the father of the deceased boy. Jaber Abu Kaloub is another devastated father who had to watch his beloved child die in his arms. For the world, his suffering has become a statistic – a scale by which the scale of this conflict is measured. His son's name was Mohammad. He was nine years old. He was born with cerebral palsy. He died next to a garbage dump, in a place where his family was forced to camp.
In the hospital's intensive care unit, CNN journalists also learned the story of Abdul Kamal Al-Aqqd. The boy had not spoken a word since the attack. There was terror behind his glassy eyes, and dirt was still stuck under his fingernails. His aunt was with him in the hospital. The boy's mother was also seriously injured. Kamal did not know that his 14-month-old sister had not survived the airstrike. A few days after CNN filmed Kamal in the intensive care unit, it turned out that the boy had not survived. He was three years old. One day in the Gaza Strip shows how fragile existence is in a place where you can simultaneously see life, death, and brief moments of childhood joy.
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