"My Toy Was Blown Away by a Bomb, But My Dreams Are Still Alive" – A Child's Voice from Gaza
Gaza Strip, April 2025
In the midst of relentless airstrikes and crumbling buildings, a small voice rises above the smoke and dust — fragile, yet unbreakable. "My toy was blown away by a bomb, but my dreams are still alive," says 8-year-old Ameen, standing beside the rubble that was once his home in northern Gaza.
The war has taken almost everything from him — his parents’ grocery shop, his school, his playground, and the red plastic car he once cherished. But what the bombs could not destroy were his dreams. Ameen wants to become a doctor. “So I can help the injured people like the ones I saw at the shelter,” he says, with a maturity that feels painfully out of place in someone so young.
A Generation Born in War
More than half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 18. For many of them, war is not a chapter in history — it is their daily reality. According to UNICEF, thousands of children have lost access to education, healthcare, and even clean water. But despite the trauma and loss, stories like Ameen’s reveal a deeper truth: the human spirit is harder to destroy than buildings.
“These children have seen more in a week than many of us will in a lifetime,” says Mariam al-Khatib, a volunteer psychologist working with displaced families in southern Gaza. “Yet they draw, they write, they sing, and they dream.”
Toys Replaced by Tears, But Hope Endures
In shelters, drawings by children show bombs falling from the sky, stick figures crying, and shattered homes — but also bright suns, flowers, and smiling faces. Psychologists say this mix of trauma and hope is common in war-affected children.
One such drawing hangs on the wall of a UN relief center: a picture of a broken toy lying next to a hospital, with a speech bubble that reads, “One day, I will fix this.”
Global Silence, Local Strength
While the world debates politics and ceasefires, the children of Gaza are living the consequences in real time. Over 70% of them have symptoms of PTSD. And yet, amid the broken dreams and broken buildings, new dreams are being born — of peace, of rebuilding, of living a life beyond survival.
Ameen clutches a donated notebook where he draws pictures of stethoscopes and hospitals. “I will build a new clinic when I grow up,” he says. “For all the people who couldn’t make it to one in time.”