After harrowing losses, Gaza's orphans find respite in Al Baraka camps

There was an iPad. There was the smell of breakfast cooking. There was a family. Then there was nothing.

In soft spoken words interrupted by a slight stutter and frequent pauses, Alma Ghanem Jaroor shared with TRT World the details of the day she became an orphan.

Seated outside the tent she now calls home in Gaza's Al-Mawasi camp, the 12-year-old vividly recalled watching her iPad on the sofa of her uncle's home. She and her family had moved there after their own home in the Al-Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City was damaged by Israeli bombing.

"I was watching my iPad while my mother prepared breakfast. I noticed it was 6am on the screen when the first missile hit. Our five-storey building shook, and there was smoke," Alma said.

She paused.

Her eyes drift away, and for a few seconds, she's quiet, like she's gone back to that life-defining moment.

Returning to her story, she fleetingly shared the details of the blast and the building crumbling, then explained how on December 2, she spent hours beneath the rubble, hearing the moans and prayers of some of the 40 relatives and family members she had lost that day.

"It was 9:30 (am) when I gained consciousness. I read the time on the iPad. There was too much rubble on top of me, I couldn't move my legs or my arm. Just that one arm I could move. I kept calling out for help. And there were voices. I heard a lady pray. She wasn't a young one. There were others who identified me from my voice - perhaps my cousins or my sister. They would say 'Alma, is that you? Are you alive?' But then they all went silent."

Ten months later, Alma is in the care of her aunt, who looks after her along with her own six children and husband in a camp dedicated to orphans.

The child is one of at least 1,151 children who have lost both their parents amid Israel's relentless shelling of Gaza which began almost a year ago, according to the latest tally issued by Gaza's health ministry on June 30.

Children were becoming orphaned at such an unprecedented rate during the very early stages of the war that doctors and relief workers created an acronym to describe the phenomena: WCNSF, or "wounded child, no surviving family."

In total, more than 17,000 children have lost one or both parents in the war, a number constantly on the rise as the violence drags on.

Endless stories of loss

In one of four Al-Baraka camps in Al-Mawasi, Alma and 39 other orphans have found a safe place to stay along with their only surviving relatives. Here, the stories of grief are endless, with children innocently sharing memories of what life was like before a missile or a rocket stripped them of their own families.

Despite recurring Israeli aggression over the years, there are no orphanages in Gaza. The understanding in society was that orphaned children were to be looked after by relatives, and brought up in the homes of uncles and grandparents who assumed the responsibilities of the deceased parents.

But amidst the war that has ripped families apart and in which the population is struggling to make it through each day, the new wave of orphans lacks this support.

Beside another tent, four-year-old Mohammed Motassem Al-Da'lsa watches other kids play from afar. Every now and then, a ball lands near him, or another child urges him to play with one of the worn-out toys scattered around.

For the most part, Mohammed shows no interest.

He and his brother, Ali, who is three years old, are accompanied by their uncle, also named Mohammed, and together they moved to the camp in May, becoming the first family to live on this side of the camp. Despite the months that have passed since, the young children remain intimidated by their surroundings, unwilling to engage with those around them.

The uncle lost a son and a pregnant wife in the same air strike that killed his brother on October 28. Widowed and childless, he's now taking care of the two orphaned boys, and two fatherless nieces living alongside nearly 2,500 other fatherless orphans in the camp.

"Following that air strike, Mohammed was so very badly wounded that paramedics believed he was killed and were beginning the necessary procedures for his burial when his little lungs began to breathe again," recalled the boy's uncle.

The child was receiving treatment at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City when the Israeli army seized it. The two fled the hospital with the still-untreated child being pushed on a wheelchair. As the uncle walked for miles to make it past the barriers separating northern Gaza from the south, he was arrested by the Israeli army, and the two children were left in the custody of another family for two weeks, while he was held in prison.

"They've seen too much, those poor kids. Mohammed's face remains badly disfigured and his legs haven't fully recovered. That's one reason why he avoids playing with the others," his uncle said. "Not to mention the emotional and mental harm done to them," he added sorrowfully.

Mohammed expressed his gratitude for Al-Baraka camp's donors, founders and volunteers. "The boys and I spent three days on Al-Mawasi beach without so much as a shelter in May. I haven't had an income since October so I can't afford them anything. I was lucky to come across their phone number and they immediately took us in," he said.

Finding respite

All day at Al-Baraka camps, where some 2,500 orphans from 400 families who have lost their breadwinners live, children cheerfully play beneath the sun and fly drones, laughing and squealing as they run across the dust-covered space serving as a pseudo play area in the heart of rows of tents. Their little feet, mostly bare, kick puffs of sand into the air.

It's this sense of safety and community which Mahmoud Kallakh, the initiator of these camps, had hoped orphans would find.

Kallakh, who has been in the humanitarian field for years, told TRT that the four camps were all funded through support from Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and abroad.

"These camps came to embrace this vulnerable category of children orphaned by the current war, only according to the available capabilities," he explained, adding that orphans and widows find shelter, drinking water, water for other uses, medical help, and other occasional forms of assistance.

"Food supplies aren't always stable given the overall shortage across (Gaza), and electricity generators are also absent, but we're hoping to keep building the utilities and services which we can offer," he said.

The needs of the camps are tended to by around 40 volunteering women, mostly widowed mothers, some of whom also entertain the children and hold classes for children who have missed a whole year of schooling.

"We've provided shelter and security to the best of our abilities, but Israeli bombs remain our main threat. Although Al-Mawasi is designated a safe area, the region is increasingly being targeted," noted Kallakh, referring to several airstrikes on Al-Mawasi this month, which killed dozens.

"We will continue to develop these camps and care for our orphans, but only pray for them to be left alone," he said.

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.