Last month, I was waiting for a shared taxi at a roundabout in Nuseirat when I witnessed a heartbreaking scene. As I was standing on the side of the road, I felt a small hand tugging at my clothes.
I looked down and saw a little girl, not even eight years old. She was barefoot, her shirt was torn, and her hair was unkempt and unwashed. Her eyes were beautiful and her face showed innocence, but fatigue and despair clouded it.
She begged, “Please, please, just give me one shekel. God bless you.”
I decided to talk to her before giving her the money. I knelt down and asked, “What’s your name?”
She answered in a frightened voice, “My name is Noor. I’m from the north.” Her name, which means “light” in Arabic, was a contrast to the darkness that surrounded her.
I asked her, “Noor, why are you asking for money?”
She looked at me hesitantly and whispered. “I’d like to buy an apple…I want to eat an apple.”
An apple currently costs $7 in Gaza. Before the war, a kilogram of apples cost less than $1.
I tried to ignore the pain rising in my chest. I thought about the situation we face now, where young children are forced to beg on the streets just to buy apples.
I gave Nour 1 shekel ($0.30), but things quickly turned sour. A large group of children, Noor’s age or younger, gathered around me and repeated the same request. I felt immense pain.
For more than two years, we have been facing genocide. We have witnessed countless tragedies and horrors. But for me, the sight of children begging on the streets is especially difficult to bear.
Before the war, Gaza was still a poor region. I used to see child beggars, but they were few in number and mostly roaming around in a few areas. Now they are everywhere, from north to south.
The genocidal war has destroyed families and livelihoods across Gaza. The genocide has left more than 39,000 children orphaned, massive destruction has left more than 80 percent of workers unemployed, and countless children have been pushed into extreme poverty and forced to beg to survive.
However, child begging is not simply a result of poverty. It is a sign of a deep breakdown affecting families, education systems, and communities. No parent would send their child to beg just because they wanted to. The war has left many families in Gaza with no options, often with no surviving parents to keep their children off the streets.
Children who beg don’t just lose their childhood; They also face exploitation, harsh labor, illiteracy and psychological trauma that leaves lasting effects.
The more children beg, the less hope this generation has. We can rebuild homes and restore infrastructure, but we cannot bring back a generation of young people who have been deprived of education and hope for the future.
Military power was not the only strength Gaza possessed before the war. It was about human power, and its main pillar was education. We had one of the highest levels of literacy in the world. Enrollment in primary education was 95%. In higher education, it reached 44%.
Education served as an antidote to the debilitating siege that deprived Gazans and paralyzed the economy. It fostered skills and ingenuity in younger generations to cope with increasingly harsh economic realities. More importantly, education gave children direction, security, and pride.
The systematic attack on Gaza’s education system – the destruction of schools, universities and libraries, the killing of teachers and professors – has brought what was once an incredibly resilient and effective system to the brink. The pillars that have protected children and guaranteed a bright future are now crumbling.
Noor’s eyes didn’t leave me even after I left the Nouseirat roundabout. It wasn’t just because it was painful to see innocent children forced to beg. It was also because of the recognition this encounter brought. It means that the next generation’s ability to one day rebuild Gaza is being taken away.
The world allowed Israel to commit genocide in Gaza for two years. Even though they knew what was going on, they chose complicity and silence. Today, we cannot erase guilt, but we can choose to redeem ourselves. We can take all necessary actions to save the children of Gaza and provide them with the rights inherent in the Convention on the Rights of the Child: to food, water, health care, a safe environment, education, and protection from violence and abuse.
Failure to do so would mean continuing support for the slow genocide in Gaza.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
