Our children draw pictures of bombs and graves
Six-year-old Yusuf Abdurrahman Matar and his four-year-old brother Emir Abdurrahman Matar faced life-threatening malnutrition in July in Gaza City. At the moment, 90% of children under five are malnourished. Babies are dying. Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images
Two years ago this week my world, the world of my family, and the hopes and dreams of the people of Gaza, started to shatter. It has been two years of relentless bombing, displacement, and despair. For more than 2.2 million people it has been two years of hell.
I speak as a father of three and a humanitarian worker with ActionAid Palestine who has been living the horror of this brutal conflict every single day.
Our homes and neighbourhoods are gone, levelled by Israelâs sustained bombardment. Our schools, universities, hospitals and markets lie in rubble. Gaza city, once so full of life, has been reduced to ruins.
Daily life is no longer life at all; it is mere survival.
Every morning, I wake up to the same reality. Where will we find food today? Is the water safe enough to drink? Will my children survive another night of airstrikes? These are the questions that dominate life in Gaza.
Families queue for hours in the hope of a loaf of bread or a jerrycan of water. Parents search desperately for medicine that no longer exists. Mothers put their children to bed hungry, praying they wake up in the morning.
The statistics tell only part of the story, but they are staggering. Since October 2023, more than 66,000 Palestinians have been killed, including an estimated 20,000 children. Another 20,000 children have been orphaned.Â
According to UN Women, over 28,000 women and girls were killed. Thousands of Palestinians have suffered life-changing injuries and are amputees.
Famine has officially been declared in parts of Gaza where the population of 2.2 million people is food insecure. Up to 90% of children under five are malnourished. Babies are dying.
These statistics are not just numbers. Each number represents a human being. These are my neighbours, my colleagues, my family and my friends.
Two years on, 1.9 million people have been displaced â almost the entire population â many of them forced to flee multiple times as bombardments spread across Gaza. Families now live crammed into shelters, tents, or the open air.
Disease spreads quickly. Clean water is almost impossible to find. Gazaâs health system, once among the strongest in the region, has collapsed under the weight of endless casualties and destroyed infrastructure.
What is heartbreaking is to witness how childhood in Gaza has been obliterated. Children have lost everything; homes, schools, friends, and their sense of safety. UNICEF warns that a whole generation is being âtraumatized beyond repairâ.Â
I see this daily. Children wetting themselves at the sound of drones, children who no longer speak, children drawing only pictures of bombs and graves.
As a father it is heartbreaking to see my own three childrenâs lives stolen away. I try every day to give them some sense of safety and hope. They ask me constantly when this war will end, and why no one is stopping it.Â
Why they can no longer have fruits or vegetables like before. Why their school was destroyed. Most of the time I have no answer for those questions.
I live with the constant fear of not being able to protect my children, while at the same time I try to carry out my work to support others.
Humanitarian needs are overwhelming and humanitarian workers are suffering. We, too, queue for bread and water. We, too, live with fear for our families. The line between my role as a humanitarian and my reality as a father has long since disappeared.
But for aid workers like me the burden is almost unbearable. We struggle to deliver assistance under impossible conditions. Borders are sealed. Supplies are blocked. What little aid trickles in is a drop in an ocean of need.
The challenges are enormous. People ask for support, but we do not have enough to meet their needs.Â
We try to be as creative as we can and to support people with the resources we have, even under impossible conditions.Â
We are doing our best to support the communities while facing the same hardships as they do.
The two years of war has been really exhausting, yet despite everything people here remain resilient. I see mothers comforting children with nothing but words. I see teachers running classes in tents. I see neighbours sharing scraps of food.
This resilience is extraordinary. But resilience is not enough in the face of such trauma.
Two years of war have destroyed an entire society. How much longer will the world tolerate this? How many more children must die before there is action?
We need an immediate and permanent ceasefire, not another temporary pause, not another fragile truce, but a real end to the violence.
We need safe, unrestricted humanitarian access so that food, medicine, and clean water can reach the people who so desperately need them. We need accountability for the massive violations of international law that have been committed.
And above all, we need the international community to stop wringing its hands and to start using its power to end this nightmare.
Two years have been enough. Enough destruction, enough displacement, enough killing.Â
I am a father before I am a humanitarian. I want what every parent wants: to see my children safe, fed, educated, and free to dream of a future.Â
That is not too much to ask. That is not a privilege, but a right.
Gaza cannot survive another year of this. The question is whether the world will act before it is too late.
- Alaa AbuSamra is ActionAid Palestine Humanitarian Response Manager. The response in Gaza is supported by ActionAid Ireland
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