'She calls for her mother': Tragic tale of Gaza's orphaned children

Young family members take on parenting roles as number of orphans in enclave mounts

Unicef says 19,000 children are now either orphaned or separated from their parents in Gaza. AFP

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In the rubble of a Gaza home partially destroyed by Israeli shelling, the cry of a baby rings out. One-year-old Farah knows the word "mummy" but to no avail – her tears won’t be soothed by her parents.

She is one of an estimated 19,000 children who have been separated from their parents or are unaccompanied in the Gaza Strip, according to Unicef figures.

Many parents like Farah’s have been killed in the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 40,500 people since October. Some are left to fend for themselves, others are taken in by family members young and old.

Farah and her two siblings, Suhail, 9, and Warda, 4, were the only members of their immediate family left after a bombing on their home in Gaza’s northern Beit Lahia. Their parents and two of their siblings were killed in the attack in November.

The children’s young paternal uncle now looks after them after they were seriously injured in the attack.

“Since then, the kids have been struggling a lot, crying and constantly asking about their mother and father,” Hashim Masoud, 22, told The National. “It's often hard to console them, especially Farah, who always cries and calls for her mum.”

Amid displacement orders given by the Israeli army with only hours’ notice, frequent bombing campaigns and long journeys to find food and water, children are becoming orphans at an alarming rate, as well as being separated from their families.

Many children who survive attacks go unclaimed in hospitals and camps, health workers have told The National.

Unicef announced on Wednesday it is attempting to help families keep track of children in the conflict zone by distributing 450,000 identity bracelets. Under the scheme, children under six, who may struggle to remember parents’ names or phone numbers, will be given hospital-style bracelets to wear in case of separation.

Many young people who have not started their own families have now become responsible for the children of deceased loved ones.

Maha Hamad, 25, is now the main carer for her 10-month-old nephew Mahmoud, after her sister died when he was only three months old.

Mahmoud was born to his mother Tarnim in northern Gaza on October 29 in the infancy of the war, with his father striving to keep the mother nourished so she could breastfeed their son.

In January, days after fleeing their home in the Jabalia refugee camp amid Israeli shelling, the nearby house they were staying in was bombed. Mahmoud was in a different room to his parents and miraculously survived the strike.

Since their death, Ms Hamad has taken it upon herself to care for Mahmoud, trying to make up for the loss of his parents.

“But unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I can never provide him with what his mother would have given him,” she said.

“When he wakes up crying at night, sometimes we just can't calm him down, even though my mother tries to help me. But children sense their mother's presence and calm down with her; it's a well-known fact.”

Older children robbed of a parent by Israel’s bombing campaign have more ways to express their hurt and confusion, and with some being cared for by older family members, communication can be fraught.

In a school serving as a shelter for displaced people in Gaza city’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, only child Zeina, 12, misses her mother.

“Sometimes Zeina asked me questions I can’t find answers for," her grandmother Tahani Abu Ouda, originally from Beit Hanoun, told The National. “She keeps saying: ‘why I can’t go to my mother’, and hoping to see her for one minute to hug her and never let her go.

“No matter how much my son Mohammed, her father, tries, he can never replace the love and care her mother gave her.”

Zeina’s mother was killed in March by Israeli shelling while she was going to buy presents for her. She cries every day in mourning.

“No matter how hard I try to comfort her, I struggle every day, wishing I could do more for her, but there's only so much I can do,” Ms Abu Ouda said.