Around Rouaa Hassouna and his Oud, displaced children sing, masking the drone noise and the war in the Gaza Strip. An opportunity like any other to have fun and reduce fears.
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According to the United Nations, children represent half of the 1.9 million people displaced in the besieged Palestinian territories since the war began.
They have been forced to abandon their daily lives and live under Israeli army bombardment since Hamas' bloody Oct. 7 attack on Israeli soil that left some 1,140 people dead, according to an AFP count based on the latest official figures.
This war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement has had a significant impact on children, emphasizes musician Rouaa Hassouna.
This 23-year-old young woman, along with others, offers activities for children in makeshift camps in the southern city of Rafah (South), where much of the country's 2.4 million residents are crowded together in precarious conditions. Palestinian territory.
“We try by all means to remove children from the war,” she explains. “The aim of the blackmail is to relieve their stress” and alleviate the psychological distress they are experiencing after more than two months of hostilities.
When Rouaa Hassouna sings the first notes of the music, the children around her no longer hear the hum of the “zanana” (Arabic word for drone). They ignore the “zanana” to listen to the sound emanating from the oud and sing with the oud, the oriental lute.
On the faces of children with pronounced facial features, a few smiles appear, then shy sounds and clapping of hands. Carried away by the music and the warm atmosphere, a boy even starts dancing in the crowd.
“Living my childhood”
The musical performance lasts three hours and every day Rouaa Hassouna goes to the refugee camps to involve a new group of children in the activities.
A UNICEF spokesman described the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as the “most dangerous place in the world” for a child.
After spending two weeks there, James Elder spoke about the fate of children hospitalized after amputations and then “killed in these hospitals” by the bombing and siege by the Israeli army.
The war declared by Israel against Hamas in Gaza has left more than 19,667 dead, most of them women, children and teenagers, according to the latest report from the Palestinian movement's health ministry.
About fifteen people take turns putting on dance shows, acrobatics or story readings at the camp for displaced people in Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt.
“It is an important project because, according to our observations, the psychological state of the children is very poor,” complains Awni Farhat, initiator of the initiative.
This space “allows them to unload the psychological disorders caused by this war,” explains the young man who lives in the Netherlands and returned to the Gaza Strip at the end of November thanks to a ceasefire.
The children are happy to meet the volunteers and just play.
Nizar Chahine is tired of this war. He took part in the music workshop to “forget what I saw in this war. I want to forget the worries and forget the people I lost,” admits the 15-year-old.
“These games make us forget that there is a plane above us. I want to live my childhood the way we experienced it before,” says the teenager, who feels “suffocated” in his camp. “We don’t know where to go. Today there is no water, no food, there is nothing.”