Nearly 40,000 Palestinian Children Orphaned by War in Gaza

Palestinian families have stepped in to take care of children not their own but the volume of children orphaned by the war is staggering

Three-month-old baby Rim is the sole survivor in her family after an Israeli military attack on the home of the Abu Hiyye family in Khan Yunis, Gaza on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Mahmoud Bassam/Anadolu via Getty Images)

KHAN YOUNIS — Eleven-year-old Mohammad Sharaara lies alone in a hospital bed at the Nasser Medical Complex. He is the sole survivor of six members of his family killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Khan Younis last month, including both his parents.

Mohammad lost his left leg in the bombing. He is receiving treatment to recover and resume his life with a permanent disability, but has no one to care or provide for him. While Mohamed’s immediate family fled south from Gaza City to Khan Younis in December 2023 in a doomed search for safety, his other relatives remained in the north.

“Losing my leg is not the biggest loss in my life, what hurts me more is that I want my mother. I don’t want to live without her,” Mohammad told Drop Site News, his voice wracked with pain.

With a ceasefire deal that went into effect on January 19, the relentless Israeli airstrikes and attacks in Gaza have, for the time being, largely ended. Aid has started to arrive. Preparations are underway for medical evacuations to resume and displaced residents are planning to return to the north. Palestinians in Gaza only begun to take stock of the war’s devastating toll: over 47,000 confirmed killed, over 111,000 injured, and vast swathes of the enclave bombed, bulldozed and in ruins.

For the children of Gaza, the carnage is unprecedented in recent history. Over 14,500 children have been killed since October 2023, according to the health ministry. Of the 1.9 million people — 9 out of 10 residents in Gaza — who have been internally displaced, half of them are children, according to UNICEF. Many of the children who survived, belong to a new generation of Palestinian orphans.

Mohammad is part of that generation. Occasionally, the mothers of other children receiving treatment alongside him feed him and help him to use the bathroom. Aziza Hamid, whose own child is receiving treatment at Nasser hospital after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike, told Drop Site she tries to take care of Mohammad, bringing him things like soup, pies and juice, when she can find it. He often eats alone.

"I contacted Mohammad's grandmother who lives in Gaza City, and she asked me to take care of him and take him with me to our house when his treatment is complete, until the war ends," she said.

Mohammad is one of approximately 38,500 newly orphaned children since Israel’s war on Gaza began 15 months ago, according to the Director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Zaher Al-Wahidi.

Ismail Al-Thawabtah, director general of the Government Media Office, told Drop Site that more than 40% of families in Gaza are taking care of children not their own. “Even before the current Israeli war, there were a staggering number of orphans in Gaza – 33,000 children – as a result of five previous wars since 2008,” he told Drop Site. All four orphanages in Gaza have been turned into shelters for the displaced, leaving orphaned children without care or living with other families, Al-Thawabtah said.

The toll of Israel’s brutal military campaign on children became apparent early on in the war. Soon after the airstrikes began in October 2023, medics in Gaza began using a unique acronym to describe what had quickly become a common phenomenon: WCNSF, or short for “Wounded Child No Surviving Family.”

Palestinian families have stepped in to try and take care of children not their own. But the volume of newly orphaned children, many of them wounded, is staggering.

Osama al-Qarnawi, an 8-month-old baby, was orphaned soon after he was born. His mother, Amani, who gave birth to him in June after 16 years of trying to start a family, was killed in an airstrike soon afterwards that targeted a school in Deir al-Balah housing displaced residents. In May, before Osama’s birth, his father, aunt, and grandmother were killed in a separate bombing of their home in al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

One of Osama’s surviving aunts, Hanaa al-Qarnawi, decided to adopt him and raise him with her own children. "Osama's father had bought him everything he needed as an infant, such as diapers, milk, clothes and even toys, but the Israeli airstrikes prevented him from staying by his side,” she told Drop Site, as Osama lay asleep in a dilapidated metal bed beside her in a school housing the displaced. "I promised myself that I would raise Osama just like my own children," she said.

Due to the war, there is no official care for orphaned children in Gaza, Hanaa explained. "I try to provide for his needs, but he needs more than I can provide,” she added. “Milk and food are barely enough, and the environment here is not suitable for an infant."

Dardah Al-Shaer, a professor of social psychology at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, told Drop Site that many children who have lost their parents have also become responsible for supporting their younger siblings.

Temporary solutions will not address Gaza’s orphan crisis, Al-Shaer said. Gaza needs a special fund for orphans to help secure basic needs including education, shelter, clothing, and food.

As a result of losing their families and their ongoing exposure to the horrors of war, orphans are also living with severe psychological trauma, he said. Symptoms include involuntary urination, convulsions, aggressive behavior, and excessive nervousness, he said.

A study conducted by the Community Training Center for Crisis Management in Gaza, published on December 12, 2024, revealed that 96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent, while 49% expressed a desire to die.

“By almost every measure, 2024 was one of the worst years ever for children in conflict in UNICEF’s history – both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a statement. "We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s unchecked wars.”

NOTE: This story was updated on January 23, 2025, to reflect new figures released by the ministry of health on the number of new orphans since October 2023.