There are a million kids living in Gaza. Foreign Correspondent followed one young family trying to survive.
War has taken so much from 10-year-old Siraj Mohamed. Most troubling is how it's robbed him of the bedrock assurances of childhood: that a bomb won't fall from the sky; that his siblings will be alive tomorrow; that his parents are able to keep him safe.
Those promises are now in ruins, like the shattered buildings piled up around him.
Originally from Jabalia in Gaza's north, Siraj has spent most of the last two years living with his family in a makeshift camp next to the beach further south, in central Gaza, navigating a childhood amid war, hunger and repeated bombardment.
He's a gentle soul but there's anger in his eyes. "I was living my childhood. Now, there's no childhood left," he says, sitting in front of his family's tent. "Where is the childhood?"
Siraj Mohamed was forced to move to Deir al-Balah in central Gaza with his family after the war started.
Foreign Correspondent: Jaber Badwan
Instead his days are filled with fear. At times it's overwhelming, like the night he was stalked by a quadcopter while going to the bathroom. They look like recreational drones but can reportedly have bombs or guns attached. There are multiple reports of them firing at children.
"I stood still, I looked at the ground, I saw the red and blue lights," Siraj recalls. "Then I held the flashlight, pointed into the ground and ran back to the tent."
We asked the IDF about their use of quadcopters but they didn't respond.
That night changed Siraj, his mother Halima says. He refused to go back to his own bed. He curled up next to her and held her hair while he slept.
"This isn't the Siraj from before the war," says Halima. "Siraj used to appear strong to everyone. But today the smallest thing shakes him. Maybe because of the loss, or maybe because of what he's seen."
There are a million children living in Gaza through the war between Israel and Hamas.
"Gaza is not a place for children right now but it's home to a million of them," says UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, who has been to Gaza five times since the war began.
"And they're seeing, they're hearing, they are witnessing things that no-one could ever imagine."
Since the war began, more than 18,000 children have been killed, Gaza's health ministry says, and nearly 40,000 have lost one or both of their parents, according to figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. There are more child amputees per capita in Gaza than anywhere else in the world, according to the UN.
"We're almost two years into this war and it has been, on average, 27 children killed every single day," says James Elder. "So a classroom of girls and boys has been violently killed every day for almost two years. That in any sense is a war on children."
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) say "the implication that the IDF deliberately targets children is outrageous; the insinuation that it is IDF policy to do so is not only baseless, but absurd. The IDF does not target minors and takes extensive measures to prevent harm to civilians, including children".
However, a recent report by the UN Human Rights Committee that found Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, also found there is "a clear pattern of conduct since 7 October 2023 showing that the Israeli security forces directly targeted children in different circumstances with the intention to kill them".
Israel rejects the report, calling it "distorted and false." We asked the IDF why the death toll for Gazan children has been so high, but it didn't answer.
Against this macabre backdrop, Siraj and his siblings' situation could be worse — at least they're alive, their parents are alive, and they've avoided serious injury.
Over two months, working with local journalists in Gaza, Foreign Correspondent followed his family through their daily lives. In the many hours of filming with the Mohameds, one thing became apparent: this war will have a lasting impact on the physical and mental health of these kids as they grow into adulthood.
If they can survive that long.
'Like I'm walking to my death'
Before war broke out, life was good for the Mohamed family. Their father Ahmed had a permit to work in Israel, where he earned a decent living as a welder. They went to school and had a comfortable house.
That life was suddenly obliterated on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza; nearly 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages taken. The IDF soon told civilians to leave Gaza's north "for their own safety" and the Mohamed family ended up settling in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, in a tent with no electricity or running water.
"Life in the tent is hard," says Siraj. "Sand where we sleep, the heat when we sleep. The sand and heat mix and stick to the body."
"Gaza was a million times better before. Before, we had food, drink and clothes. We had beds. We had rooms and bathrooms."
"I wish I could go back to my home," says Siraj's eight-year-old brother, Suwar.
"We had a toy box in which I used to play with toys. Now I have nothing to play with. I started playing with sand."
"When there's a bombing I hide with mummy or daddy because I'm scared," says their three-year-old sister Sila.
"I want to go back to the house and I want my toys and my doll."
Israel has severely restricted aid and supplies entering Gaza for most of the war. Food — especially nutritious food — has been scarce. Prices are massively inflated. According to the UN-backed IPC, there's an "entirely man-made famine" underway in Gaza City, a claim Israel says is a "modern-day blood libel".
"Gaza is not a place for children right now but it's home to a million of them."
— James Elder, UNICEF
Like many Gazan families, the Mohameds must now rely almost entirely on aid to survive. In recent months, most of their food has come from charity kitchens run by NGOs, who are able to get limited supplies of food from unreliable aid convoys.
Siraj and Ahmed have often made the 45-minute walk together to the charity kitchen, where the NGOs dish up meals of beans or pasta. For Ahmed, each step brings a growing sense of dread.
"The burden is heavy, believe me," he says. "It's like I'm walking to my death. Why? Because it's heartbreaking. You might find food, or you might not."
It's humiliating for both father and son. "Once I was queuing at the charity kitchen, it was a very long queue, and I waited so long and did not get anything," says Siraj. "They said there was no food left."
Another time, his younger brother Suwar was pushed by another child in the jostle for food and ended up falling into the pot.
"We have pride, respect and dignity," says Ahmed. "When the man serving fills your portion you pray in your heart, 'Oh God, let him fill enough so I can go back and it's enough for my children.'"
Even when his pot is full, the fear and indignity remain. As his hungry children eat, Ahmed has to remind them to save some, because tomorrow they might not get any more. The kids loathe the food but it's all they have. "It's a blessing," says Suwar.
The physical and mental scars
Halima and Ahmed have clearly tried to shelter their children from the horrors of war, but it's an impossible job. According to UNICEF, Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Early on in the war, Suwar was struck in the forehead by a piece of shrapnel, the family says, and is now perpetually terrified. "I'm afraid of bombs being dropped on me," he says. "I'm afraid of missiles being dropped on me. I am afraid the plane will throw something at me."
Three-year-old Sila has developed a skin condition. Her mother has tried to get her proper medical care but she says she can't find any medicine. A doctor has prescribed several ointments for Sila but "none of them can be found," says Halima, "no matter how many pharmacies or clinics you visit."
Mostly Halima worries about the lasting imprint war is having on her kids. "Siraj hadn't seen much before, but today, even a small rocket frightens him," she says. "He gets scared and panics. And it shows. He runs and cries, hides behind us."
When Halima thinks about him before the war, she remembers a child who was affectionate, sensitive and charismatic; a happy boy who loved going to school. She's frightened she no longer recognises him. "Today, Siraj is very angry," she says. "He's going through a phase of frustration. He's bitter about life. He hates living."
These days he says what is probably the hardest things for any parent to hear. "He often stands and says, 'I wish I would die,'" Halima says. "I ask, 'Why, my love?' He says, 'I can't take it anymore. Every day I carry water containers, every day I run to the charity kitchen, every day I live in sand and filth.'"
Siraj's pain is compounded by the loss of his older brother, Nasr. The family say last year, when Nasr was 19, he tried to cross territory controlled by the IDF to go back north to collect his family's belongings from the rubble.
Nasr Mohamed (on the left in both photos) went missing last year.
Supplied: Mohamed family
His father Ahmed pleaded with him not to go. "I said, 'Don't you dare, don't you dare,'" Ahmed recalls. "Suddenly, that was it. God's will happened. He went out, I lost him."
They haven't heard from Nasr since. Siraj thinks about him all the time and refuses to believe he's among the more than 64,000 Palestinians killed in this war, according to Gaza health ministry figures. He hopes he's being held by the Israelis, but the IDF have told Foreign Correspondent they have no record of him.
Halima often sits with him as he talks about his older brother. "He starts crying, missing him," she says. "And I don't know what to do. As a mother, I don't know how to help him."
"Life for a father and mother during war is extremely difficult. You carry the burden of your child's fear and terror," says Ahmed.
"You need to provide food, water, safety. You try to give them even a small part of what you used to provide before the war, but you can't."
"When you see your children withdrawing from everything in life, you look at them and realise they have no life, no education, no health, no care — nothing," says Halima.
"You feel like you're sliding down a slope with no end."
It's an all-too-common feeling for Gazan parents, says UNICEF's James Elder. "A parent said one of the most frightful things he'd experienced in this whole war was his daughter looking in his eyes and realising he could no longer protect her," he says.
The scale of mental and emotional trauma is hard to fathom. According to UNICEF, every child in Gaza will need mental health support — the first time they've ever said that about an entire population.
"There's a level of trauma that the best child psychologists and adult trauma specialists can't put their finger on right now. Everyone's in uncharted territory," says James Elder.
James is hoping to go back to Gaza soon for a sixth time, as the IDF ramps up its efforts to fully occupy Gaza City and force an estimated one million residents — including hundreds of thousands of children — out. He fears the trauma risk is "calcifying".
"That's what's terrifying," he says. "You really do risk now losing an entire generation of Palestinians.
"People can't take any more. I've sat with teenage girls in trauma counselling who have literally said, let the next bomb hit my tent. People are done."
'No decent life here'
Two weeks ago, the Mohamed family were forced out of their tent near the beach in central Gaza to make way for people fleeing from Gaza City. In its own words, Israel "opened the gates of hell" on the city, it says to destroy Hamas's last important stronghold.
The family is now living amid rubble in Khan Yunis in Gaza's south. They say Israeli tanks are about 100 metres away and shells fly overhead at night. "The tanks started shelling, they fired about five to seven shells," says Ahmed. "These are enough to traumatise children for life."
During weeks of filming with Foreign Correspondent, Ahmed remained remarkably calm, dignified and optimistic. But now he's despairing. "There's no charity kitchen, no water, no life, no sign of life," he says. "There's no decent life here."
He says he walked for two hours for water but what little he could find was contaminated. The kids suffered cramps, diarrhoea and vomiting.
He's now busily tying ropes to hang ripped tarps to provide some shelter for his wife and kids. "This sun will make them sick, will kill them," he says. "If the Israelis don't kill us, this will."
While there is more food coming in on supply trucks and being sold in the market, these days Ahmed can't afford it. He spent the last of the family's money on a taxi fare to move south and a few packets of pasta and flour.
Now he can't even buy his kids a $2 tin of tuna, he says. "A grown man, 47 years old, and he doesn't have four shekels in his pocket. I wish for death. I truly wish for death. This life is not for me."
Siraj hasn't lost all hope for the future. He dreams of one day studying to become a neurosurgeon. But for now, he just wants to get out of Gaza.
"Gaza is now completely destroyed," he says. "It's all rubble, all stones and there are no schools, no hospitals, nothing at all.
"I'm not willing to sacrifice myself, and my childhood, and to lose ten years of my life or lose my siblings and my childhood. I want to grow up."
Watch Children of War tonight on Foreign Correspondent at 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
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Credits
Photography and video: Jaber Badwan
Reporting: Jaber Badwan, Stephanie March and Naomi Selvaratnam
Research: Victoria Allen
Digital production: Matt Henry
