Irish NGO Trócaire has launched its Christmas appeal, focusing on children in conflict and highlighting the fact that one in six young people in the world live in conflict zones.
Gaza is quite rightly in the headlines at the moment but it’s not just there where children are bearing the brunt of violence and conflict. From Gaza to Ukraine, from Ethiopia to Sudan, children are living in fear.
Imagine life for a child caught in a conflict zone this Christmas. In many cases they have no food, no clean water to drink or safe place to rest their heads. Fragile. Frightened.
Trócaire is asking people here at home to support the Trócaire Christmas Appeal which will provide survival kits, emergency dignity kits and essential food baskets for these children and their families, as well as supporting critical work across Trócaire’s global programmes.
Gaza is obviously front of mind for people at the moment and Trócaire has said that donations made in Ireland are saving many lives in Gaza even as the horrendous situation which has already resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent women, men and children sees the unacceptable death toll continue to rise.
As well as those who have tragically lost their lives, many more people have been seriously injured.
The situation is posing huge challenges for Trócaire’s partners, but they are making a difference thanks to the support of the Irish public. Trócaire’s partner organisation, Medical Aid for Palestinians, is working against the odds in Gaza to ensure that those injured, many of them children, receive urgent medical care to give them the best chance of survival.
Another partner, Caritas Jerusalem, has seen their medical centre and clinic in Gaza City damaged in the bombardment, but staff are continuing to strive to provide whatever medical support they can. This life-saving work has been made possible by the generosity of people here at home.
The recent temporary truce allowed for limited humanitarian aid to reach those desperately in need of food, water, and medical assistance, and the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, including children, allowed them to be reunited with their families.
However, Trócaire says a pause is not enough. A permanent ceasefire needs to be brokered to bring an end to the hostilities that have seen thousands of Palestinian and Israeli civilian lives lost, the majority of them women and children.
About half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are children. Since October 7th, they have lived under constant bombardment, with many packed into temporary shelters in UN-run schools after fleeing their homes with little access to food, clean water or medical supplies.
In Gaza, a child aged 15 has experienced five periods of intense bombardment in their life: 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021 and now 2023.
The stories that Trócaire’s partners have shared are heartbreaking.
Habiba Murjan (8) was sitting at home, painting and watching the news with her family when she was killed by Israeli air strikes that hit her home in Gaza City. “When the war started, Habiba’s little body was shaking all the time because of the sounds of the bombings and rockets,” her mother Feda’a says.
Habiba was in third class and she was so clever. She wanted to be a doctor when she grew up
“On the day she died, she had collected her colours and brushes, and she was drawing the television telling the news of the war and the flag of Palestine. An hour later, Habiba was killed in a brutal attack against her home, without any fault.”
“Habiba was in third class and she was so clever. She wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. They killed her dreams, and they deprived me from enjoying the light of my beautiful moon.”
Feda’a, who worked for Trócaire's partner the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, calls on the international community to demand an end to the war on Gaza.
“Please stop all of this. The piece of my heart Habiba has gone, and I don’t want more mothers to go through what I am going through,” Feda’a says. “Please stop these massacres against the children of Gaza.”
On October 19th, Viola (26) an aid worker with Trócaire partner agency Caritas Jerusalem, and her infant daughter and husband were killed in an Israeli air strike attack on the St Porphyrios Church in Gaza.
Viola’s sister and her two children were also killed. The church provided refuge for more than 400 people including Caritas staff and their families. At least 17 people lost their lives.
Father-of-three Mohammad, who works as a field researcher with Trócaire partner Al Haq in Gaza, echoes Feda’a’s plea for the war to end, saying that his children are traumatised.
While documenting Israel’s bombing of the Jabalya refugee camp, where at least 40 Palestinians were killed, Mohammad received a phone call from his wife who was in a state of panic and informed him that their neighbourhood was being bombed.
My seven-year-old son ... fled inside the building. I found him screaming in terror in the elevator
“I rushed home and a state of terror had spread in our building,” Mohammad says.
“I led my wife and children out of our home in a state of panic, with screams and pushing among the neighbours. When we reached the street at the building’s front door, we witnessed the bombing of the building directly behind us.
"My seven-year-old son was holding his mother’s hand, and during the moment of the bombing, he didn’t know where to go due to fear, so he fled inside the building. I immediately followed him inside while the residents were still evacuating and tripping over each other. I found him screaming in terror in the elevator. I quickly carried him out of the building, as the residents had already evacuated.
“Minutes after we left, the entire neighbourhood was bombed. My children are still in a state of panic and shock. What happened to us has happened to thousands of Palestinians in the past few days.”
Trócaire is asking people in Ireland, if they are able, to support the Trócaire Christmas Appeal to help children not just in Gaza but right across the world who are living in conflict zones.
Please give what you can at trocaire.org or call 1800 408 408
