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LONDON: “This is my brother’s shroud,” said 12-year-old Jenan Abu Saada, lifting a clay figure she had shaped in an art workshop in central Gaza.

The image of her little brother’s body wrapped in cloth has never left her. Through her art, it lingers with everyone who sees it — a stark reminder of the heavy price war exacts on innocent lives.

Jenan’s brother was killed by unexploded ordnance after an Israeli assault on the Maghazi refugee camp, she told her art instructor, visual artist Jihad Jarbou.

Jarbou began working with children in central Gaza after realizing their desperate need for a safe space to express themselves.

With schools shuttered and community centers destroyed, she and other artists — supported by the Shababeek Center for Contemporary Art and UK-based charity Hope and Play — improvised makeshift workshops to help children cope with trauma.

“Our kids have been spending most of their days fetching water, food from the Takiya (community kitchen), and firewood,” Jarbou told Arab News. But when she unrolls the paper for them to draw on, she says the mood shifts.

“It’s like a summons that reminds them they’re only children. They run to me, and we form a circle.”

While children elsewhere return to classrooms for the new academic term, students in Gaza are missing their third consecutive school year.

Nearly 92 percent of school buildings have been damaged or destroyed since October 2023, according to an August report by the Education Cluster, Save the Children and UNICEF.

Survival itself remains a daily struggle. Frail with hunger and disease, children often wait hours for water or a meager portion of food.

Against this backdrop, Jarbou begins her art sessions with questions no one seems to ask anymore — about favorite colors, or dreams for the future. “No one listens to them anymore,” she said.

Nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced, many repeatedly, UN figures show. Families crowd into tents or makeshift shelters in UN-run schools.

At least 20,000 children have been killed since the war began, according to Gaza’s health authority, while Save the Children estimates that one child dies every hour.

The devastation is deepened by what UN experts call Israel’s deliberate starvation campaign. Famine was declared in Gaza Governorate in August, with warnings it could spread.

At least 132,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition; 135 have already starved, 20 since the famine was declared. Earlier this month, an independent UN commission concluded Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — a claim Israel rejects.

This reality is etched into the drawings by Gaza’s children. Local artists say recurring themes include quadcopter drones — which children call “the monster that stole their loved ones” — and pictures of home.

“Hardly a page is without a house,” said visual artist Mostafa Muhanna, who also works with Shababeek and Hope and Play. “It reflects their deep need to feel safe.”

One boy drew the home he hoped to rebuild. A girl sketched a tent in bright colors, calling it “the place where I live with my sisters.” Dania, who has suffered an eye injury, drew her mother’s room tucked into a corner of the page, describing it as her “safe space.”

But safety keeps slipping away. “The feeling of safety has been lost, and the meaning of ‘home’ keeps changing,” said Muhanna. “I fear the children may come to see a home not as shelter, but as a tent they despise — scorching in summer, soaked with rain and bitter cold in winter.”

He recalled a 4-year-old who drew evacuation routes, with people fleeing soldiers. Another girl, Jana, once sketched Gaza’s streets colored entirely in black. She was killed in January.

For visual artist Maysa Yousef, the journey into art therapy began at home, after her daughter lost two close friends.

“My daughter had two friends, twins named Cedal and Loujein, who were the daughters of her schoolteacher,” Yousef told Arab News. “One night, a single airstrike killed the entire household. My daughter and I were in shock.

“She was consumed by grief, so I told her they’re now in heaven, and whenever we miss them, we can write letters to them. Now, whenever she goes through periods of intense crying and fear, she writes to Cedal and Loujein until she calms down.”

That experience inspired Yousef to launch the project Rasa’el Ila Assamaa — “Letters to the Sky.”

The war turned Yousef’s home in Deir Al-Balah into a shelter for 70 displaced families. With her psychologist husband, she trained herself in art therapy and began holding workshops in her home and nearby camps.

“When Israeli forces began targeting tents, I moved the workshops to the street outside my home, sometimes working with 120 children at once,” she said. “But even this street came under fire.

“I then moved my work to my house, which also received several strikes. My studio has been destroyed. I now let the children draw on the walls and wherever they please.”

Despite support from groups like Hope and Play, art materials remain scarce, often requiring long hours of searching. “There were times I felt despair and fear,” she said. “But my husband kept encouraging me.

“Not a single household in Gaza is free from loss, and this deliberate starvation has devastated children and adults alike. In these workshops, children find someone to ask them: How are you? It’s a space for freedom.”

For these children, art is a language. “It gives them a voice when words fail,” Amroo Al-Zeer, a senior protection officer in Gaza with Project HOPE, told Arab News. “It allows them to reclaim their narrative, build self-esteem and foster mutual support.

“These expressions are deeply personal and often leave layers of emotional complexity that verbal communication alone might not uncover. In a group setting, creative practice also promotes community healing and solidarity.

“These drawings are more than just pictures. They are stories. They help us — as mental health professionals — to better understand their inner world and tailor our intervention accordingly.”

Hope and Play initially focused on food and water, but soon realized children also needed hope. “When asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, seven- or eight-year-olds said they wished they were dead,” founder Iyas Al-Qasem told Arab News.

“In a world where children dream of being doctors or athletes, these children did not want to survive because of what they were seeing around them. Every day was torture.”

His teams soon realized that “as much as we needed to keep them alive with food and water, we also needed to do something to keep hope alive, because these children literally had no hope.”

Artists saw that despair — but also resilience. “Those children have lost their schools, homes, loved ones, friends, and even parts of their bodies,” said Jarbou.

She described one boy who lost his foot in an airstrike yet still hopped around to play. “It’s so astounding how he can do all of this with one foot.”

UNICEF says Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. In January, it reported up to 17,550 severe limb injuries among children, many treated without anesthesia or adequate supplies.

Hope and Play partnered with Shababeek — long active in art exhibitions and children’s projects before October 2023 — to expand workshops. “We provided stipends and materials. Often food was involved because people needed to be fed while taking part,” said Al-Qasem.

“One artist took children to the sea to build sand replicas of their homes as a way to reconnect and also to recognize impermanence; waves would wash the sand away and they would build again.”

Experts agree art provides a vital outlet. “They’ve been exposed to experiences that are extremely difficult to process,” Rim Ajjour, a Lebanon-based child psychologist, told Arab News. “Often, they’re afraid to put those experiences into words. Drawing offers a safe space.

“While art is not a solution, it provides a way for children to express themselves, since it’s really hard to erase the images from their minds or undo what they’ve lived through.”

Despite the dark themes, “there are also drawings of the sun and flowers,” said Al-Zeer. “A symbol of hope and resilience.” Both Yousef and Muhanna noted how children’s moods lifted after these activities.

Colors, too, tell a story. Black, red and gray dominate when fear is strongest; yellow, green and blue appear when children feel safe.

In Arab cultures, children are often discouraged from expressing sadness or anger, Ajjour said, “because such feelings can be seen as signs of weakness. Instead, they are encouraged to display bravery and strength, which is sometimes viewed as a coping mechanism.

“But while adults may use this approach, children often cannot distinguish between coping and suppression, and they still need space to express what they truly feel.”

In Gaza, that expression spills beyond paper, onto rubble itself. “A single sheet of paper was never enough to contain their feelings,” said Muhanna.

“When they discovered watercolors, I felt I was standing before young artists carrying the seeds of the future.”

For the artists themselves, the work is also healing. “I lost my father and brother in this war,” Jarbou said. “I couldn’t create for a while. But through working with children, I managed to return to my art.”

In the end, however, no paper, no wall, and no canvas is large enough to contain the grief of Gaza’s children.