GAZA, (PIC)
“My name is Rahaf… I’m 12 years old. I used to love wearing pretty dresses and playing with my friends. We used to laugh, draw, and dream. But the war took everything from me… even food. I’m always hungry, my stomach hurts, and I get tired from the smallest movement. I just want to go back to how I used to be… to eat, laugh, run, and go to school. I want to live like other children.”
With these simple words, Rahaf Ayad from Gaza sums up the pain of Palestinian childhood under siege. Two photos of Rahaf are circulating on social media: in the first, a lively girl wearing a flowery dress and smiles innocently; in the second, a frail body with eyes drowning in sorrow and malnutrition. The difference between the two pictures isn’t time — it’s war.
Today, Rahaf suffers from severe malnutrition due to the suffocating blockade and the lack of food and medicine — a condition affecting more than a million children in the Gaza Strip, according to relief organizations.
These children have been deprived of life’s basic necessities — their rights to safe food, healthcare, and education.
Rahaf’s mother, holding back tears, says: “My daughter was always laughing. She loved to dance in front of the mirror and sing. Now she just lies down. She doesn’t even have the energy to speak. I pray to Allah she can go back to how she was.”
The ongoing war and blockade over the past years have devastated Gaza’s infrastructure, collapsed its healthcare system, and driven poverty rates above 80%. Hospitals are nearly out of medicine, food supplies are running out, and thousands of children suffer from moderate to severe malnutrition with no effective intervention.
Rahaf is not just one case; she is a symbol of a childhood being silently assassinated every day. Doctors in Gaza have warned that her health could deteriorate rapidly without urgent treatment, yet they also admit they lack the resources to help because of the blockade and dwindling aid.
In the face of this tragic reality, the question arises: how long will children remain victims of a conflict they had no part in creating?
Rahaf, like thousands of other children, is not asking for the impossible. She simply wants to eat, play, and return to school.
Her message to the world needs no translation: “Help me live … it’s not my time to die.”
The story of Rahaf Ayad should sound the alarm and awaken consciences. Voices must rise, and wills must act to end the blockade and save what’s left of childhood in Gaza.
