04-07-2025
Opinion: In Gaza, children are learning the alphabet through grief and hunger
On the evening of Friday, 6 October 2023, my aunt Doaa, a kindergarten teacher in Gaza, had just finished preparing new activities for her students. She was excited to see their reactions the next morning.
Tragically, the next day, 7 October, marked the end of any semblance of normal life and the beginning of a war that shattered everything.
Since then, Israeli air strikes have pounded every corner of Gaza - homes, hospitals, schools, and even kindergartens have not been spared.
Doaa's house was reduced to a heap of rubble, burying her teaching materials and the toys she had bought for her students - children who deserved to live.
A Palestinian woman and children stand amid the rubble at a kindergarten hit by Israeli air strikes in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 9 December 2023 (Said Khatib/AFP)
