Gaza war orphans left without close family to care for them

While playing with dolls in a hospital bed Loop, With one leg in a cast and scars on her face, 10-year-old Razan Shabat is unaware that her mother, father and siblings died in the attack that injured her.

The little girl is one of the growing number of children in Gaza who have lost both parents, and in some cases their entire family, to the war between Israel and Hamas, and who are in the care of distant relatives, friends or even strangers.

“This girl does not know that she has lost her family, and now we are responsible for her”says Rajaa al-Jarou, married to Razan’s uncle and now caring for the girl at the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Despite the large scab on his forehead and scars thinner than his cheek, Razan’s face lit up with a big smile as he played with two pink rag dolls, cooing at them like a mother would with a baby.

His smile disappeared when they asked him what he missed most in the hospital.. “I miss my family. “I miss seeing them.” she said, suddenly sad and serious.

His left leg was on the bed, in a complete cast.to. “I had surgery on my leg, it was broken. And, as you can see, I have a wound on my forehead and I have had four operations on my skull, but, thank God, I am fine and, thank God, I am getting better.”

Younis al-Ajla, a doctor treating Razan, said she and many other children had been taken to the hospital alone. “Of many of the children who arrive at the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, we do not know their names. “We write ‘unknown’ on their admission records until one of their relatives comes and recognizes them,” he said, adding that this had been the case with Razan for many days.

“They have lost everyone”

James Elder, chief spokesman for UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said it was difficult to determine how many Gaza children were orphans due to the high death toll and desperate conditions on the ground.

“There are many children who have lost their parents, but what is worse, they have lost entire families,” he claimed.

Relatives or neighbors often step forward to care for orphaned children, although there are cases so extreme that there is no one left alive to do so, he said.

“I have met children, usually in hospitals because they had been injured when their house was hit, who had lost their mother and father and their grandparents, uncles, brothers, everyone.” “When a child is the last surviving member of the family, then you have a real problem.”

The war was triggered by the attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, including babies and children, and kidnapping 240 people of all ages to be held hostage in Gaza, according to Israel.

Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas, has responded with a military attack and total siege of the densely populated strip that has killed more than 18,000 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Gemma Connell, a UN aid worker visiting the Deir al-Balah hospital, crouched down to talk to a girl sitting on the floor with bandaged feet, holding a partially inflated blue balloon in one hand and a packet of candy in her hand. the other. The girl seemed stunned and she did not respond.

Connell said she had met many children who were traumatized, hurt, hungry, scared and, in many cases, heartbroken.

“Many of them have seen their brothers and their parents die”he said in a telephone interview on Monday, after his visit to the hospital.

“Yesterday I met a girl of about four years old who couldn’t speak because of what she had seen. She couldn’t even say her name. She had her eyes as wide as those of a deer in the headlights (…) This is how the children are in Gaza.”