In Palestine, trauma is woven into the environment children grow up in through displacement, loss and fear.
This is not incidental: it is the result of a colonial system designed to de-stabilize childhood and undermine the future of an entire nation.
Children in Gaza grow up with constant fear, loss, and restrictions on safety, movement, and stability.
The @gazafreedomflotilla physically challenges the naval blockade. The PHRC works with children to address the blockade’s psychological and social consequences.
These are not separate efforts. They are connected forms of resistance responding to the same colonial system of control and erasure.
Supporting children’s healing is an act of solidarity — and a step toward freedom, dignity, and the future they deserve.
The PHRC has produced and published The Witness, an archival book that brings together drawings and testimonies by children in Gaza.
Each drawing is a real record of lived experience. Together, they show a painful truth: the conditions shaping Palestinian children’s lives today reflect a history that has remained unchanged since the Nakba.
Developed with the support of art therapists and psychologists, The Witness includes a framework to help readers understand the recurring symbols and themes in the children’s artwork, providing context for their powerful messages.
We sincerely thank everyone who supported and pre-ordered The Witness. Your solidarity made this archive possible.
The book is available to order through our website.
If you have not yet received your copy, please contact [email protected].
To witness is to carry these stories forward.
Your monthly support means we can sustain our work, plan ahead, and continue showing up for the communities who rely on PHRC.
If you believe in this mission, stand with us in a consistent way.
Become a regular donor and help us keep going.
Link in our bio.
“I am here… do you see me?”
For many children who have lived through difficult and traumatic experiences, expressing emotions is not always easy. Self-portrait drawing offers a safe and supportive space where they can explore their identity, feelings, and inner world without fear or pressure.
What may appear as a simple art activity is, in reality, a meaningful step toward emotional healing, helping children rebuild self-awareness, confidence, and connection with themselves and those around them.
Beyond Their Years
We asked Tuqa, 13 years old, simple questions about fear, safety, tomorrow, and growing up. Her answers reveal deeper stories. Stories of responsibility, loss, hope, and dreams that refuse to fade.
These aren’t the words of a child who has had the chance to simply be a child. They are shaped by experiences far beyond her age.
Behind every answer is a child still hoping for safety, for family, for school, for a future.
Arabic below | العربية بالأسفل
They target more than homes and schools; they target memory, imagination, language, and the future itself, our children.
When children are forced to exchange books for firewood, classrooms for water lines, and dreams for survival, this is not accidental. It is the systematic, violent destruction of childhood and knowledge: Epistemicide.
From schools and universities to libraries, archives, and fertility centers, every attack reveals a deeper colonial logic: to sever people from their roots, their identity, and their right to imagine tomorrow.
But Palestine continues to resist. In tents, shelters, and ruins, children are still learning. Families are still protecting hope.
At PHRC, in collaboration with Let’s Talk Palestine (LTP), and FFC we stand with them to protect the minds of future generations.
🔗 To support and contribute:
Donate now or get your copy of the archival book “Witness” via our website: (Link in Bio)
العربية:
إنهم لا يستهدفون المنازل والمدارس فحسب؛ بل يستهدفون الذاكرة، والخيال، واللغة، والمستقبل ذاته.. أطفالنا.
عندما يُجبر الأطفال على استبدال الكتب بالحطب، والفصول الدراسية بطوابير المياه، والأحلام بالبقاء؛ فهذا ليس محض صدفة. إنه التدمير العنيف والمنهجي للطفولة والمعرفة: “الإبادة المعرفية”.
من المدارس والجامعات إلى المكتبات والأرشيفات، يظهر كل اعتداء منطقاً استعمارياً عميقاً: قطع صلة الإنسان بجذوره وهويته وحقه في تخيل الغد.
لكن فلسطين تستمر في المقاومة. في الخيام، والملاجئ، وبين الأنقاض، لا يزال الأطفال يتعلمون، ولا تزال العائلات تحمي الأمل. نحن في PHRC، وبالتعاون مع Let’s Talk Palestine (LTP)، نناضل معهم لحماية عقول الأجيال القادمة.
🔗 للدعم والمساهمة:
تبرع الآن أو احصل على نسختك من كتاب “شاهد” (Witness) عبر موقعنا: (الرابط في البايو)
📸 Photos by | @tamerkuhail
🎨 illustrations | @raahatkaduji
#Letstalkpalestine #Gaza #Epistemicide #Palestine #PHRC
What’s called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) does not fully capture the experience of children in Gaza, because it assumes that danger has ended and trauma is in the past.
In reality, children in Gaza live under continuous, repeated, and open-ended trauma fueled by structural violence, siege, and fear. Even ordinary or unexpected sounds can become triggers, making persistent anxiety and traumatic memories a daily reality.
PTSD focuses on individual symptoms rather than the colonial and structural conditions that create constant threat, and it can pathologize natural responses to real danger. True recovery is impossible without safety and liberation from the structures that sustain fear and insecurity.
Safety and freedom are the first steps toward real healing for children in Gaza and in Palestine.
Follow @phrc_ps
Children’s Drawings as Mental Reconstruction
What are children trying to express when they draw a colorful home over a gray, broken reality?
These drawings are not just art, they are acts of ‘mental reconstruction’, a way for children to reclaim safety, hope, and a sense of normalcy stolen from them.
Why does a child draw a ‘perfect home’ while living in a tent? The home becomes a second self the epicenter of security. Through these drawings, children create an ideal space that protects their inner world from chaos and fragmentation.
With 80–85% of homes in Gaza destroyed, a million children have lost their private corners, their spaces for family, friends, and imagination. In their art, they reclaim a place untouchable by warplanes, surrounded by trees, flowers, and memories.
The use of bright colors is a visual declaration of life. After years of destruction, children refuse to adopt the gray rubble imposed on them, they paint defiance, Sumud, and hope.
What remains of a child when their home vanishes? In Witness, we documented the will to survive. If children’s geography is under attack, their drawings become a “safeguard of identity” that cannot be erased.
If you could describe ‘home’ in a single word beyond walls and concrete, what would it be?
#children #traum #heal #share #support
Series: Entire Generations Under the Shadow of Trauma
A closer look at childhood in Gaza and the deep psychological impact of genocide
This series looks at the huge losses that children in Gaza face. Years of blockade, repeated wars, and ongoing structural violence have left an entire generation deeply affected. Tens of thousands of children were killed and many more have lost their parents, their homes, and their sense of safety, many are the only survivors of their families.
We don’t yet know the full impact on these children as they grow up. How will living through so much trauma shape their minds, their sense of who they are, and their futures? What does “safety” or “family” mean to a child who has never felt it?
Through this series, we hope to explore these questions, raise awareness, and show the urgent need for psychological support for children whose childhoods have been stolen.
What can we learn from these children’s lives? And how will the world respond to an entire generation growing up under the shadow of genocide?
What makes you feel safe?
In Gaza, our facilitator Amani explored this question with children through drawing and simple group exercises. Giving children the space to express what safety means helps them process their feelings, build trust, and feel heard. These small moments are important for their emotional wellbeing, confidence and overall development.
We are now in the stage of evaluating the work we have carried out over the past two years and a half and planning the next phase of our interventions in Palestine and Egypt. Moving forward, we will focus on more targeted creative tracks with selected groups of children, so that we can provide deeper and meaningful support.
Thanks for making this happen!
During Ramadan, our team in #Gaza organized small Ramadan gatherings and activities for children. They played together and spent time in a safe space with our team.
These moments of care matter deeply for children living through ongoing hardship.
Your support helps us continue this work.
