Gaza City:
In a overcrowded room in a United Nations shelter in Gaza City, a cage within a cage, we meet Mohammed, six-years-old.
His mother, Namia Abu Aoun, gave birth to Mohammed in the same room, six years ago, when his family fled the violence of the 2008 Gaza war. An estimated 1,100 Palestinians were killed in that conflict, of which over 300 were children. Since birth, he cannot hear or speak, his family says most likely because of the traumatic conditions in which he was born.
And here he is with his family back in the same shelter, in a place associated with fear, and a lifetime disability. His family, which lives in the war-torn neighborhood of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, says they had nowhere else to go, then or now.
An operation can cure Mohammed. But in Gaza's only government hospital, there are 350 cases before him. The cost of a private hospital is too high, almost 10,000 Jordanian dinars (around $14,000).
His family communicates with Mohammed through improvised hand gestures. To learn proper sign language, they need a special software, for which they need a computer. They have neither.
His father says, "He tried to be active with other children, to play with them but since he can't hear them, he tries to stay alone. "
We meet Nasra, 11-years-old, walking through the ruins of Shejaiyah, east of Gaza City.
On a single day at the start of this war, 70 were killed in Shejaiyah in shelling by the Israel Army. Homes were laid to waste. The army claimed it was a Hamas stronghold.
Using the window of ceasefire, Nasra - living in a UN shelter - tried to return to what was left of her home with her father. But the army started to shoot at them and Nasra lost consciousness. She told us that she lost several friends during the war, reciting their names: Dalia, Hadil, Visam.
War has directly ruptured the lives of children like Nasra and Mohammed.
But there are many, many more children - not wounded physically, but on whom war has cast its indirect, traumatic shadow. Pernille Ironside, the UNICEF head in Gaza, told us that "up to 370,000 children require immediate psychological intervention".
UNICEF has only five teams of 10 people each to provide child counselling, an impossible task.
Even if they do survive the war, Gaza -- its economy war-torn, and closed off on all sides -- is no place for the young to dream.
Outside the Al Shifa Hospital, a group of young men from Shejaiyah, as if in one voice, tell us they want to "become mujahideen, to fight for the Gaza resistance".
"Isn't that risky?" I ask.
"The IDF is a formidable force".
"We are not afraid".
"And what of a political solution?"
"Israel is not interested".
This could be partly bravado, partly group pressure before the cameras.
But equally, it is easy to see how a deeply dysfunctional childhood, and the palpable sense of injustice could produce such extreme reactions.
Almost all of Gaza's schools are doubling up as shelters, home to nearly 225,000 refugees fleeing violence. Given the still-imminent risk, it is unlikely that the classrooms would have emptied out when school holidays end two weeks from now. For Gaza's young, the war has narrowed an already narrow window of hope.
His mother, Namia Abu Aoun, gave birth to Mohammed in the same room, six years ago, when his family fled the violence of the 2008 Gaza war. An estimated 1,100 Palestinians were killed in that conflict, of which over 300 were children. Since birth, he cannot hear or speak, his family says most likely because of the traumatic conditions in which he was born.
And here he is with his family back in the same shelter, in a place associated with fear, and a lifetime disability. His family, which lives in the war-torn neighborhood of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, says they had nowhere else to go, then or now.
An operation can cure Mohammed. But in Gaza's only government hospital, there are 350 cases before him. The cost of a private hospital is too high, almost 10,000 Jordanian dinars (around $14,000).
His family communicates with Mohammed through improvised hand gestures. To learn proper sign language, they need a special software, for which they need a computer. They have neither.
His father says, "He tried to be active with other children, to play with them but since he can't hear them, he tries to stay alone. "
We meet Nasra, 11-years-old, walking through the ruins of Shejaiyah, east of Gaza City.
On a single day at the start of this war, 70 were killed in Shejaiyah in shelling by the Israel Army. Homes were laid to waste. The army claimed it was a Hamas stronghold.
Using the window of ceasefire, Nasra - living in a UN shelter - tried to return to what was left of her home with her father. But the army started to shoot at them and Nasra lost consciousness. She told us that she lost several friends during the war, reciting their names: Dalia, Hadil, Visam.
War has directly ruptured the lives of children like Nasra and Mohammed.
But there are many, many more children - not wounded physically, but on whom war has cast its indirect, traumatic shadow. Pernille Ironside, the UNICEF head in Gaza, told us that "up to 370,000 children require immediate psychological intervention".
UNICEF has only five teams of 10 people each to provide child counselling, an impossible task.
Even if they do survive the war, Gaza -- its economy war-torn, and closed off on all sides -- is no place for the young to dream.
Outside the Al Shifa Hospital, a group of young men from Shejaiyah, as if in one voice, tell us they want to "become mujahideen, to fight for the Gaza resistance".
"Isn't that risky?" I ask.
"The IDF is a formidable force".
"We are not afraid".
"And what of a political solution?"
"Israel is not interested".
This could be partly bravado, partly group pressure before the cameras.
But equally, it is easy to see how a deeply dysfunctional childhood, and the palpable sense of injustice could produce such extreme reactions.
Almost all of Gaza's schools are doubling up as shelters, home to nearly 225,000 refugees fleeing violence. Given the still-imminent risk, it is unlikely that the classrooms would have emptied out when school holidays end two weeks from now. For Gaza's young, the war has narrowed an already narrow window of hope.
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