Gaza Herald — Amid the ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation forces have systematically transformed engineered famine and strict blockade into a lethal tool of destruction targeting the enclave’s most vulnerable population: tens of thousands of Palestinian children left orphaned by relentless bombardment. Stripped of the parents and breadwinners who once protected them, these parentless children and “sole survivors” are forced to confront severe malnutrition completely alone.
Rather than receiving sanctuary, healthcare, or psychological support to navigate the devastating loss of their families, Gaza’s orphans are thrust onto the front lines of daily survival, forced to wake before dawn, brave target-riddled food distribution lines, and navigate dangerous displacement camps to secure a cup of water or a single loaf of bread for their surviving younger siblings.
Every morning, 13-year-old Jana al-Motouq wakes up alone inside a tattered displacement tent in the Gaza Strip. The young Palestinian girl prepares her own meager breakfast, washes her clothes by hand, and gets ready for makeshift school lessons, tasks her mother once did with love.
On November 17, 2023, an Israeli military strike targeted her family’s residential building in Jabalia, instantly killing her father Ahmed, her mother Heba, her twin sister Saja, and her two younger brothers, eight-year-old Hossam and four-year-old Mohammed. Jana survived only because she was sleeping across the street at her grandmother’s home after falling ill, returning at dawn to find their home transformed into a pile of smoking rubble where 35 members of her extended family also perished.
Jana’s horrific ordeal is far from an isolated incident across the enclave, where over 73,000 Palestinians have been killed under relentless bombardment and engineered starvation. According to official data from Riad al-Bitar, undersecretary at the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development in Gaza, the ongoing genocidal war has created more than 68,000 sole survivors who have lost their entire immediate families, alongside more than 75,000 orphans who have lost one or both parents. The scale of this systemic devastation forced medical personnel in Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals to adopt the horrific clinical acronym WCNSF, “Wounded Child, No Surviving Family”, to categorize incoming young patients who arrive injured, traumatized, and completely alone in the world.
Survivor Guilt and Psychological Trauma Among Enclave-Wide Orphaned Youth
For children left behind after entire bloodlines are wiped out by Israeli bombardment, survivor guilt presents an unbearable psychological weight. Psychologist Sereen al-Absi explains that sole survivors continuously wrestle with profound self-blame, constantly questioning why they survived while their entire households were killed.
In the days following the Jabalia strike, Jana returned daily to the ruins of her home, hugging bloodstained blankets retrieved from the debris and wishing she had died alongside her family rather than face total isolation. This acute trauma is further exacerbated by repeated forced displacements, extreme overcrowding in makeshift shelters, and the daily struggle to secure basic food and clean water.
For 18-year-old Dima Junina in Gaza City, the loss of her entire family occurred on October 30, 2023, when an Israeli airstrike caused an adjacent building to collapse onto her home. Trapped beneath the rubble behind a fallen door, Dima begged rescuers for news of her parents and three younger brothers, only to learn at dawn that all five had been killed. Today, Dima describes taking on the role of “five people in one,” absorbing every domestic and financial burden her parents once carried.
Yet, both Dima and Jana emphasize that their internal strength does not erase their profound grief or the constant societal reminders of their orphanhood within devastated displacement communities.
Manufactured Starvation Compounds the Ordeal of Parentless Children
The deliberate weaponization of food blockades and siege policies directly compounds the psychological devastation endured by Gaza’s sole survivors. Without adult providers to secure emergency rations or earn an income in an economy where unemployment has eclipsed 80 percent, orphaned youth are forced onto the front lines of Gaza’s manufactured famine. Parentless children must navigate life-threatening aid distribution points—frequently targeted by Israeli forces- or labor under severe conditions to obtain basic staples like flour and lentils for their surviving elderly relatives.
Despite facing overwhelming grief, severe malnutrition, and continuous military bombardment, Gaza’s parentless youth demonstrate extraordinary resilience while demanding their fundamental human rights. Jana, who previously maintained a 96 percent academic average alongside her twin sister, continues her studies inside tent classrooms while memorizing the Quran in honor of her family. Dima, having completed high school despite total displacement, plans to pursue university studies in psychology and establish a public water well as an ongoing charity for her slain relatives. Both young women insist that international civil society must treat them not as mere statistics of war, but as human beings entitled to safety, education, and a life free from military aggression.
