ISTANBUL

Dozens of Palestinian kids in Gaza marked World Children’s Day on Thursday by displaying paintings on the rubble of destroyed homes in the southern city of Khan Younis, using the artwork to express the harsh reality they experienced during the two-year Israeli war.

The event was organized by the Palestine Children’s Council, established and supported by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, to coincide with the annual Nov. 20 observance.

Through their drawings, the children illustrated the rights they lost, the homes they no longer have, and the disruption of their daily lives throughout the months of the Israeli genocidal war.

During the exhibition, a group of girls wearing traditional Palestinian dresses performed a song whose lyrics read: “O world, my land is burned… the land of freedom is stolen,” expressing their ongoing suffering.

The children used the event to reflect “the reality they lived through after systematic destruction affected every aspect of life in Gaza, and the (Israeli) genocide that impacted stone, tree and human,” Abdel Halim Abu Samra, training director at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, told Anadolu.

Children’s rights to education, health, food, and safe living conditions “were systematically violated over the past two years,” he added.

Yareen Abu al-Naja, the mother of one of the participants, told Anadolu that Gaza’s children “spent the past two years watching body parts every day instead of watching their shows and movies, and smelling blood instead of flowers.”

“All forms of normal life disappeared in Gaza,” she said.

Fatima al-Tabesh, one of the participating children, said she endured fear and hunger during the war.

“There was a period of more than a month when we were extremely hungry, and we were terrified of the night because of the shelling,” she told Anadolu.

On Thursday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on the US social media company X that “after two years of violence, Gaza’s children are finally breathing moments of quiet.”

“The fragile ceasefire has given children a chance to breathe, connect, play, and even start to heal,” Ghebreyesus noted, in reference to the ceasefire agreement that took effect on Oct. 10.

“But trauma, injury, grief, and shattered childhoods will take far longer to heal,” he added.

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, injured over 170,800, and reduced the enclave to rubble.