I saw a child in Gaza digging through rubble – the reason broke my heart
Since I returned from Gaza, the disorientation hasn't faded.
Coming back to the UK in April after eight weeks as part of Save the Children's response in documenting the impact of the war on children and their families, felt like stepping into another world. One that runs smoothly and quietly – while the place I left behind struggles to survive each passing hour.
What I witnessed wasn't just war. It was the steady collapse of human life.
At one point, I stood beside a mother who had survived countless nights of airstrikes. Her voice didn't waver when she said, 'Our children are just waiting for their turn to die.'
That sentence hasn't stopped echoing in my head. Not just because it was shocking, but because it was true.
And it's made worse by my belief that my own government has been complicit in one of the most devastating humanitarian catastrophes of our time.
When I arrived in February, Gaza was already in ruins from 16 relentless months of war. Entire neighbourhoods were reduced to rubble. Children were visibly malnourished, their eyes hollow with exhaustion and grief.
I still don't know how some of them found the strength to smile and play. I watched tiny bodies carrying jugs of water and younger siblings on their backs — their movements shaped by war, their words aged far beyond their years. Fear had stolen their childhoods.
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During Ramadan, when aid was abruptly cut off by the Israeli government, families who had been clinging to hope were left utterly abandoned. Many lived in makeshift tents cobbled together from sticks and plastic sheeting, pitched over the ruins of their homes.
I once asked some teenagers what they feared most. One girl looked at me and said, 'I'm scared of losing a limb'.
In Gaza, that fear is not abstract — it's daily reality. Blast injuries among children are so common that our local partners listed wheelchairs as one of the top three urgent needs.
Homes, hospitals, schools, water systems — the very fabric of life — have been destroyed. And yet, led by local teams risking their lives to work among the chaos, charities like Save the Children carved out spaces of hope.
We built health clinics in tents. We gave out shoes to children whose feet were bleeding. We created spaces of relative safety where none existed.
But since March 18 – when Israel launched a surprise attack, effectively ending the ceasefire – even that fragile lifeline has collapsed. Nowhere is safe.
I remember the night a bomb landed so close to where we were staying that the building shook. I couldn't stop trembling for 30 minutes. That kind of terror is constant for people in Gaza.
I will never forget the small boy I saw standing on a pile of rubble, using his small hands to move concrete. I wondered what he was looking for, only to be shocked when he said: 'My mum.'
This cannot, and must not, ever be accepted as normal. The reality I witnessed was so heartbreaking, that collecting the body parts of loved ones has become part of what it means to be a child in Gaza.
We cannot sanitise what's happening to innocent children. It is a relentless, suffocating horror that few can truly grasp. Families are now being forced to eat donkeys because the world has failed to save them from hunger.
Gaza is disappearing — not just under bombs, but from a lack of political will and moral responsibility.
In one of the most haunting acts of parental desperation, some families are writing emergency contact details directly on their children's bodies — in case they are killed.
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Two million people need a permanent and definitive ceasefire. Aid workers need unrestricted access to critical supplies and the people who need them.
The UK's decision to step up its action against the Government of Israel this week was the right thing to do. But the UK Government continues to supply arms, including components for F-35 fighter jets used to rain terror on civilians.
Every bomb dropped, every child buried in rubble, deepens our moral responsibility.
Gaza is not a war zone — it is a graveyard for humanity's conscience. More Trending
The UK can help change that by immediately halting all arms transfers to Israel and demanding accountability for every life lost and every family torn apart.
I still carry a bracelet given to me by children who, despite being surrounded by death, told me they love life. It's a small thread around my wrist — but it holds the weight of everything I saw.
Their voices stay with me, a quiet reminder that even in the face of unthinkable loss, their hearts still reach for joy – for a life worth living.
And now, even that is fading. By the time I left Gaza a few weeks ago, the desperation was so deep that all the children could tell me was, 'we want to eat'.
Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
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