‘My leg went to heaven before me’: Israeli war extinguishes Gaza childhoods

Jabalia, Gaza – Omar Halawa got up from his chair, like any 13-year-old child would. But he had forgotten a devastating detail about himself: he only had one leg.

“He fell off the chair,” his mother Yasmin Halawa told Al Jazeera. “It is very sad for us all, seeing him like that.”

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Omar lost his right leg three months ago. On October 1, 2025, as Israel intensified its ground invasion of Gaza amid ceasefire talks with Hamas, Omar was on the street with his 11-year-old sister Layan, cousin Moath Halawa, 13, and friend Mohammed Al Siksik, also 13, to get water from a tanker that had come near their camp in north Gaza’s Jabalia area.

“It was impossible to pay 6000 shekels for a vehicle to get us to the south, so we had decided to stay in the north,” recalled Yasmin, adding that the family had been displaced more than 15 times during the Israeli genocidal war that began in October 2023.

“The drinking water supply became very rare in the area, so the children of the camp decided to get up just after dawn to be able to get in line for a gallon of water. Moments later, the shelling started and we felt afraid for our children, Layan and Omar,” she said.

The Halawa family in a makeshift tent in the north of the Gaza Strip/ [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

As she reeled from doubts over sending the children to get water, they heard someone shouting that Omar had been hit by the shelling.

“The first thing he asked when he woke up after surgery was about his friend and cousin who were in line with him for water,” said Yasmin. “They were both killed.”

The family buried Omar’s amputated leg near their tent. He visits the grave every day. “My leg went to heaven before me,” he says.

‘Worst place in the world for children’

Omar had been grappling with deaths and destructions as soon as the war started. In November 2023, as Israel bombed northern Gaza, Layan was injured by shattered glass of the windows all around their house.

“After a horrific night, we left the house raising a white piece of cloth so that the Israeli soldiers don’t shoot at us, holding Hatem between my arms and walking with Omar and Layan by my side. On the way out, they saw the beheaded body of their eight-year-old cousin along with other martyrs. They froze in horror and started screaming and crying,” said Yasmin. Hatem is four.

“My children have been emotionally disturbed after that experience. Layan struggled with bedwetting and Omar is afraid all the time, even from the sound of a chair hitting the floor.”

Omar and Layal are among tens of thousands of children in Gaza bearing the scars of a brutal genocide that has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians, 20,000 of them children. Nearly 42,000 other children have been injured, half of them sustaining life-altering injuries, as the Israeli attacks continue in violation of a United States-brokered ceasefire.

At least 39,000 children in Gaza are now left without one or both parents – the largest orphan crisis in modern history.

“Instead of enjoying their childhood, Palestinian children are living in the worst place in the world for children. Even after the agreed ceasefire, more than 95 children have been killed,” UNICEF spokesperson Kazem Abu Khalaf told Al Jazeera, adding that more than 4,000 children in Gaza need immediate medical evacuation.

Two years of severe Israeli blockade on food and essential aid has made the humanitarian crisis even worse. “Almost 165 children have died due to malnutrition and hunger in Gaza since October 2023,” Khalaf said.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says 1.6 million Palestinians in Gaza, or 77 percent of its population, including about 800,000 children, will continue to face acute food insecurity in 2026.

‘On cold days, it hurts even more’

Among the children in desperate need of nutrition is Rahaf Al Najjar, who is also 13 like Omar.

Rahaf was fetching food for her five siblings in northwest Gaza’s Sudaniya area in September last year when fire from an Israeli quadcopter pierced both her legs.

“She is healing slowly. I am only able to provide her four eggs a week. She still has inflammation in both her legs and needs more nutritious food to heal faster. I can’t bring meat or chicken for her, I don’t have enough money for that. Sometimes, I bring her a fruit to eat without letting her siblings know about it,” Rahaf’s 35-year-old mother Buthayna Al Najjar told Al Jazeera at their tent in Jabalia.

Rahaf says the ongoing harsh winter has made her injury worse. “On cold days, it hurts even more. I feel electric‑like jolts in my leg. I need to take a medicine to feel better and be able to sleep,” she told Al Jazeera.

Rahaf witnessed the killing of her father Ghassan Al Najjar, who, she says, “used to pamper her more than her other siblings”.

Ghassan died in an Israeli drone strike on November 5, 2024 while he was pulling the body of his cousin at Jabalia camp. Buthayna says Rahaf was able to crawl to her wounded father and dragged his body inside a tent.

“Her father was still alive. He told her: ‘Be strong, my daughter, and say salam to your mom’. Then he took his last breath while she was still holding him, screaming and crying,” the mother recalled.

Rahaf says she misses her father most when she is hungry or in pain. She also misses school. “I wish I could get back to school. I miss drawing and PE classes,” she told Al Jazeera.

Buthayna says she has no money left for her children’s education. “I sold my mobile after losing my husband, so I could get my kids some food,” she said.

A Palestinian teacher teaching children in a tent near Gaza City [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Fears of losing ‘a whole generation’

Interrupted education and a loss of familiar routines has worsened feelings of uncertainty and helplessness among Gaza’s children, who have lost two years of schooling due to the bombing and displacement, and are forced to live in tents and help in fetching food and water for their displaced families.

“We have lost more than 20,000 students in the Israeli war during two years of aggression,” Jawad Shiekh-Khalil, director of education in western Gaza, told Al Jazeera. “Ninety percent of the Ministry of Education’s buildings have been completely or partially destroyed in the Israeli bombardment, and the remaining ones have turned into shelters for the displaced families.”

He said they have implemented a new strategy, called an ‘Emergency Plan’, to make up for the education they have misses for two years.

“Since the ceasefire, Israel has restricted entry of school supplies or stationery. Students can’t find paper, pencils, notebooks, or even chalk. We have almost 400 registered educational points – most of them are tents spread across the Strip, for about 150,000 students,” Shiekh-Khalil said.

UNICEF’s Khalaf also said they are launching a back-to-learning programme to get Gaza’s children resume their education and “make sure they don’t forget what they have learned before”.

“We can’t wait to lose a whole generation,” he said.

‘Traumatised children’

Bahzad Al Akhras, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that losing academic education for two years affects children’s cognitive, emotional, and social developments.

“Being away from school and having schools as shelters affects how children perceive the school as related to crowdedness and harsh living conditions,” he said. “A student will not be able to develop cognitive functions adequately when away from academic environment and the peer support.”

Al Akhras said the genocidal war has impacted the children of Gaza in several ways.

“The direct impact is seen in children who were trapped under the rubble, children who sustained severe injuries, orphaned children, and those who had experiences with the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints. The indirect impact is seen in the collapse of the education system as well as the ongoing starvation,” he said.

The psychiatrist said children, unlike adults, are unable to express themselves verbally, often displaying behavioral manifestations of trauma.

“Traumatised children show symptoms of behavioral changes. They become isolated or hyperactive, disobedient, more violent, or distracted, while some have problems with memory or forgetting. Many have to deal with bed-wetting,” Al Akhras said.

Omar is undergoing such a trauma. “He has begun to lose his hair. He doesn’t sleep well at night. He gets up often, screaming of nightmares or feeling that he has his leg back, and feeling the pain of losing a limb,” Yasmin told Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian boy says he feels helpless.

“I suffer a lot when I need to use the toilet with one leg. It hurts a lot. I can’t even carry a packet of vegetables. I fall down,” he says, hoping to get a prosthetic leg soon.

“First thing I wish to do after getting a prosthetic limb is to play football and swim in the sea. I love swimming.”