In Gaza, daily survival has become a race no one should ever have to run. Families cling together as bombs reduce schools and neighborhoods to rubble. Parents risk their lives just to stand in line for bread. Crowds push and scramble in desperation to reach humanitarian aid, knowing they could be shot on the way. For Gaza’s children, this daily race for survival means lost childhoods, lost classroom education, and lost futures.
It’s been likened to a scene from The Hunger Games, except this isn’t fiction. This is real life for millions of children and families in Gaza.
Faces of Gaza
Behind every headline are children still dreaming of classrooms, mothers determined to keep their families safe and doctors who refuse to stop fighting for life.
Hope in Gaza has many faces: Asmaa, who writes poems by candlelight; Dr. Walaa, who heals children in collapsing hospitals; and Latifah, who carries her family forward after unimaginable loss.
Asmaa’s dream: A girl’s fight for education in Gaza
For 12-year-old Asmaa, dreams come alive in poetry. She writes about the sky, her future and the hope she refuses to let go of.
Before the war, school was her favorite place. She loved her Arabic lessons, playing with friends during recess and helping her younger siblings with homework. She dreamed of becoming a writer — maybe even a poet whose words would travel the world.
Asmaa, 12, lives in a displacement camp in Gaza. She dreams of returning to school and one day becoming a poet. | © Plan International / Ahmed Salama
Now, her classroom is gone. Her family lives in a crowded displacement camp, where electricity has been cut for months. She studies by candlelight, her schoolbooks worn thin from the dust and damp. Outside, the sound of shelling rattles her window. Inside, she keeps scribbling verses on scraps of paper, determined to hold on to her education.
“Education is the only thing that no one can take away from me.”
— Asmaa, 12, Gaza
She still dreams of returning to school one day: of graduating, publishing her poems and telling her story to the world. Even in the middle of destruction, Asmaa finds words of hope.
Dr. Walaa’s mission: Healing children in Gaza’s collapsing hospitals
Dr. Walaa Wissam Abu Samra has spent her life working to protect children’s health in Gaza. Before the war, she was a pediatrician who dreamed of opening her own practice — a safe place where parents could bring their children for care.
Now, that dream feels impossibly far away. Every day she walks into overcrowded hospital corridors lined with children lying on the floor because there are no more beds. Supplies are nearly gone, and even the simplest medicines are out of reach. Still, she refuses to leave.
“I have treated children with burns, shrapnel wounds and starvation,” she says. “One father held my hands and cried because I couldn’t save his son. I will never forget his face.”
Dr. Walaa Wissam Abu Samra continues treating patients in Gaza despite extreme shortages of doctors, medicine and safe facilities. | © Plan International
“We need the world to stand with us. Gaza’s children cannot survive this alone.”
— Dr. Walaa, Gaza
For Dr. Walaa, the future is uncertain. But as long as there are children who need her, she will continue to fight to keep them alive — one patient and one family at a time.
Latifah’s strength: A mother’s fight to protect her family in Gaza
Before the war, Latifah’s days were filled with simple joys like cooking meals for her husband and five children, watching them play and planning for their future together.
That life suddenly ended when an airstrike killed her husband and two of her sons. “My husband and two of my sons were killed in an instant. My world collapsed that day,” she recalls.
In Rafah, Latifah, a widowed mother of three, faces unimaginable loss while fighting to protect and provide for her children amid Gaza’s ongoing crisis. | © Plan International / Ahmed Salama
Now, in a crowded displacement shelter in southern Gaza, she struggles to care for her three surviving children. Every day is a test of strength. They share cramped rooms with other families, stretching the little food they receive as she shields her children from the chaos outside.
“I have to stay strong for them. But I feel empty inside.”
— Latifah, Gaza
More than statistics
These are not just numbers on a page. They are children still determined to learn, doctors pushing past exhaustion to save lives with what little they have and parents fiercely fighting to protect their families. Each one carries dreams, hopes and goals — just like any of us.
Yet what they long for most is the simple safety of a home. And every day, their lives hang in the balance.
How you can help families in Gaza
Every child matters. Every truck matters. Every hour matters.
Your gift today will give children food when they’re hungry, medicine when they’re sick and clean water when they’re thirsty. It will provide dignity kits that restore safety and comfort, and help keep children in school so they can hold on to routine, community and hope.
Donate now to support children in Gaza
