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Gaza City, Gaza Strip In a partially destroyed house west of Gaza City, Faten Nabhan sat, surrounded by his six school-going children, taking a morning break after filling water containers for the trucks that visit the camp.
Faten, 35, tries to fill her children’s time with fun or educational activities during their summer vacation, but finds herself at a loss.
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For the third year in a row, since the beginning of Israel’s war of destruction in Gaza in October 2023, the summer holidays for children in the Palestinian enclave are unlike ever before.
After Israel killed more than 73,000 people – including thousands of children – destroyed or destroyed many of the Palestinian homes, and displaced many, Palestinians in Gaza are focusing on survival.
Instead of waiting for the summer camps, trips and games that used to “define” summer in Gaza, children start their days doing essential work: collecting water from trucks and distribution points, bringing food from the community’s kitchen and collecting wood for the fire.
“This is my children’s daily routine… this is all they do,” the mother said.
He added that his children, like other children in Gaza, have few means of expression, entertainment, or mental release during the summer.
“There are no activities, camps, cartoons, colors, nothing. All I can do is ask them to memorize a few verses of the Quran. That’s as much as I can,” he added.
“We have ideas… summer is a time to empower and develop children’s skills, but the resources are not there,” he said. “No props, nothing…no toys, no pens, no crayons…not even paper and a pen.”
Keeping the kids busy
Faten has to figure out how to keep her children alone – her husband Raafat was killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit their home in the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza City in October 2024.
He said: “I fail to feed my children and provide them with the necessities of life.”
Faten explained that his children have to carry loads that are not appropriate for their age: they take turns fetching water, gathering firewood, and helping their mother in the absence of their father.
He added: “I feel very sad that they are using their childhood like this.” This is a time for play, not a time for responsibility.
But other options are not available.
Faten said there are no social or institutional mechanisms aimed at providing psychological support to children in refugee camps during the summer holidays.
He said: “Our children are living in a forgotten world. Every day I read the loss and sadness in their eyes. Even playing, which is the most important thing, is missing.”
The problems that Faten describes are part of the larger problems documented by international organizations that focus on the lives of children.
A study published by UNICEF in May found that young children in Gaza do not have “the safe and stimulating environment necessary to start growing”, while older children suffer from “long-term educational disruptions with little hope of recovery without intervention” and reduced opportunities for social and emotional development.
Speaking in February, UNICEF’s director of communications in Palestine, Jonathan Crickx, said that play was a necessity for children in Gaza, and “not a luxury”.
“Play is how children get what they stole from war,” Crickx said.
Others may attend
Asmaa Saleh also lives in Gaza with her five children. The 41-year-old has spent the war moving from place to place to find safety while trying to educate his children, aged between eight and 17.
That determination to continue studying has played a major role in how he plans his summer vacations.
She makes sure all the children memorize verses of the Quran, and she manages to get two of her children a place at a summer camp organized by a local charity – but only once a week.
However, even that one day is children’s time, and it makes them happier than the children around them.
“On the day of the camp, they wake up early in the morning with unusual excitement, rush to shower, do their hair, and dress up… sometimes even skip breakfast because they want to be ready on time,” Asmaa says with a smile. But the rest of the days of the week, the same joy is not seen anymore, and the days go by at the same time.
For those six days, it is the same old routine: waking up, eating, and helping their mother with the daily chores in the tent, including washing, cooking, kneading flour and fetching water.
Asmaa, who used to work for UNICEF as a case manager, says it’s clear what a day at summer camp means to her children.
“The group activities that take place during the holidays develop wisdom, develop ideas, unity, and cooperation, while staying in the tent for a long time, without going out, causes conflicts that sometimes turn into fights and fights between the brothers,” he said.
She gave a vivid example from her home: her third daughter, who didn’t go to summer camp like her sisters.
Asmaa said that the little boy often shows disagreements and disagreements with his brothers, while the girls, in particular, return from their camps “fresh and happy”.
For women, it is further evidence of the importance of sports and education, which are among the most important rights of the child given in international conventions.
“Today, our children in Gaza are being deprived of this same freedom, at a time when they should be exercising it in simpler ways,” Asmaa said.
Now she’s trying to make sure she has activities for all her kids, even those who don’t go to summer camp.
She recently received a box of crayons and drawing paper from a charity, and now spends the afternoon with her children drawing and painting.
“I try to do everything to use their summer time,” Asmaa said. “And I still go, because I feel the change in mood that even an hour of exercise and drawing with them creates.”
