At an age when children’s concerns do not extend beyond learning and playing, the genocidal Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip has upended the lives of Palestinian children. Instead of spending their summer break playing and enjoying their childhood, their days are consumed by carrying water for their families, collecting food from community kitchens, doing menial work, and selling small items on the streets to help their families survive.
For 14-year-old Fahd Miqdad, the morning no longer begins with preparing to go to school or carrying his schoolbag and notebooks, but with searching for a work opportunity that can provide his family with the minimum needed to meet its daily needs amid the harsh economic and humanitarian conditions experienced by the people of the Gaza Strip.
Fahd told Ultra Palestine that he was forced to leave school and take up work to support his family of six after living conditions became more difficult and the family’s income was no longer enough to secure basic needs.
“I work at a small stall, bringing hot drinks to people so I can spend on my parents and siblings,” he said. “I have three younger siblings, and every day I try to provide them with food and get them anything they need, because the situation is very difficult.”
Despite Fahd’s best efforts, his daily earnings do not exceed 20 shekels, and there are days when he makes nothing. “I go out today and maybe come back with 20 shekels, maybe 10 shekels, depending on the work. I try to get by and help my family with what I can,” he said.
Notwithstanding his current predicament, Fahd hopes to return to school and continue his education: “I want to go back to school and study, be with my classmates, succeed, and learn.”
Fahd reminisces about his life before the Western-funded Israeli genocide: “I used to go to school, and I had a bag, books, and notebooks. I studied normally and used to look forward to the summer vacation to develop my talents, especially swimming and playing football.”
As part of their full-spectrum genocide, the Israelis have destroyed more than 90 percent of the schools in the Gaza Strip. The schools that survived had long been converted into shelters for displaced families. Moreover, the Israelis continue to prohibit the entry of school supplies to ensure the children are deprived of their right to education.
“Today there are no schools like before, and education has become difficult,” Fahd rued. “And even if there is education, it costs money, and we don’t have the money to pay.”
Fahd stressed that being forced to work was not a choice but a direct result of the economic circumstances that pushed him to take on a responsibility beyond his age in an attempt to ease the burden on his family and secure bread for his younger siblings.
For Tamer and Wasim Totah, both 12 years old and cousins, the days of carefree summer vacation have been replaced by long working days at a small stall as a result of the complete devastation wrought in their homeland by the genocidal Israelis.
Tamer and Wasim’s childhood has become burdened with responsibilities beyond their years. Tamer belongs to a family of eight, while Wasim lives with ten members of his family, making the need to provide a source of income urgent. About two months ago, the two children began transporting humanitarian aid carts using a handcart, earning between 5 and 7 shekels for each transport in an attempt to contribute to supporting their families.
Enterprising beyond their years, the cousins saved some of the money they earned from their hard labour and set up a small stall where they sold candies to support their families. “This was supposed to be a summer vacation like every year, where we play and rest, but circumstances forced us to be at the stalls so we can live and eat,” the two children said sorrowfully.
But this decision came at the expense of their right to education, as the two children were forced to stop studying about three months ago in order to devote themselves to working.
Tamer and Wasim studied at a school located in the Zeitoun neighborhood, while their families currently reside in Yarmouk Stadium after being displaced, forcing the children to travel long distances to reach the school. As it was impossible to enrol in a nearby free school, continuing their education became extremely difficult.
Ten-year-old Hassan has taken up physically demanding work to provide for his family. Hassan’s work involves cleaning stones and preparing them for reuse, a task that requires physical effort beyond the ability of a ten-year-old child and causes him to return to his tent exhausted every day, complaining of pain in his body and continuous fatigue as a result of the long working hours.
He earns just 20 shekels a day in his efforts to provide for a family of nine. It barely suffices to provide a small portion of the family’s needs amid the sharp rise in prices and the deterioration of living conditions in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing Israeli siege, which has allowed only a fraction of humanitarian aid to enter the enclave.
Hassan told Ultra Palestine that fatigue has become part of his daily life, but he continues working because he feels a responsibility towards his family, which depends on the small income he earns to secure food and basic needs.
He said that what he misses most is his life before the war, when he would go to school in the morning, spend his free time with his friends, and participate in activities that developed his talents.
“I wanted to go to school, spend the summer vacation playing games and doing activities, and go out with my friends, not work all day.”
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As a lifelong educator who witnessed some of my students working ridiculously long hours to fund their education, this story enrages me more than I can say. My students were in college, late teens. But these are just children. It's just another bloody abhorrent reason why Israel should NOT exist.
That is the always the plan; to push people into destitution. A family starving and searching for scraps of food will not be thinking about education. They want to spread illiteracy to destroy the society and intellectually cripple them, so they cannot have an intellectual counter to the Zionist project, it’s racism and barbarism. They can be labeled as non productive part of humanity, sidelined and the value of their lives diminished.