Bethlehem, occupied West Financial institution – A bunch of youngsters from Gaza are in an artwork workshop in Bethlehem’s SOS Youngsters’s Village, 102km (63.4 miles) from Rafah, the southernmost metropolis within the Gaza Strip.
The youngsters are engaged on depictions of the three-day journey they took from Rafah to Bethlehem, a convoluted journey to cowl a distance that might be pushed in an hour.
Like all Palestinians, their motion is constrained by the Israeli authorities, which severely limits the power of Palestinians to maneuver round in regular occasions, a state of affairs made worse by the battle Israel is waging on Gaza.
Sixty-eight youngsters have been evacuated this month from Rafah’s SOS Youngsters’s Village to the charity’s facility in Bethlehem, accompanied by 11 caregivers who have been taking care of them in Gaza with the assist of the German authorities.
Expressing ache and worry
For his or her consolation and privateness, the kids – aged two to 14 – can’t be interviewed or photographed immediately, however Al Jazeera was allowed to look at their workshop and interactions.
One woman was centered on reducing out the phrase “Rafah” and glueing it to a nook of her sheet with a tragic, scared, frowning face glued sideways subsequent to it.
From there, she wound vivid yellow yarn down the web page, wrapping it in a unfastened knot round an indignant face, then winding it in huge loops till it reached “Bethlehem”, which she had glued within the reverse nook.
Already close-knit due to how SOS Villages are structured, the kids appear to have gotten even nearer throughout their lengthy journey to Bethlehem.
One boy leans over and patiently helps a youthful boy determine what to do together with his sheet, explaining that the totally different faces have been there for the little boy to specific how he felt at totally different factors within the journey and ready for his youthful buddy to place them earlier than explaining the glue stick.
On the different finish of the room, a five-year-old boy has gotten tangled in his jacket as a result of the sleeves are inside out. His 14-year-old buddy takes it off and kinds it out, placing it again on him and pulling him near her for an enormous hug as soon as he is able to be part of the exercise.
Dr Mutaz Lubad, an skilled in artwork and psychological remedy, says this guided artwork session permits the kids some launch, to open up an area for them to specific what’s on their minds by way of their artwork.
The youngsters are processing a frightening mixture of feelings: disappointment at leaving their dwelling in addition to a number of youngsters whose households didn’t approve their evacuations, aid to be getting away from the battle, worry of loud noises after experiencing bombings, fleeting happiness at attending to Bethlehem and desires of going dwelling to Rafah.
“As a result of youngsters usually discover it troublesome to specific what they’re feeling verbally, we work on wanting into their struggles by way of their artwork,” Lubad informed Al Jazeera.
In guided artwork actions like this one the place everyone seems to be requested to provide the identical factor, the kids are in a position to decide on their colors, the expressions on the faces they decide for various factors of their journey and the way convoluted they make the glued yarn to signify their three days of journey.
Requested in regards to the significance of some youngsters placing unfastened knots into their yarn journeys, Lubad mentioned: “The knots signify factors the place the kids have been uncovered to conditions that confused or scared them, however the truth that they by and enormous used unfastened knots exhibits that these are issues they really feel they can overcome.
“One boy’s piece was particularly expressive. When he was informed he can be moved from Rafah, he feared the unknown, feared leaving his room and residential. Then in the course of the journey, he was fearful and burdened by flip till, lastly, he was relieved to be secure in Bethlehem. All that’s proven within the expressions on the faces he selected.”
Defending the kids
The Rafah SOS Village continues to be open and receiving youngsters whose households have died within the battle or who’ve turn out to be separated from their kinfolk. There are a number of youngsters who remained within the Rafah facility after their authorized guardians refused their evacuation from Gaza.
Sustaining contact with the kids’s households – if they’ve any – is a vital a part of sustaining their group ties, however looking for out which kinfolk have survived and which have died has been almost not possible, Sami Ajur, programme supervisor on the Youngsters’s Village Basis in Gaza, tells Al Jazeera.
Regardless of the difficulties the muse is dealing with in the course of the battle, it’s persevering with its work, he provides, mentioning that the Rafah facility is definitely in search of assist to broaden its operations so it will possibly obtain extra of the kids being orphaned or separated from their households each day in Gaza.
The trauma the kids are experiencing because of the battle on Gaza manifests in some ways, together with nervousness, incontinence, nightmares and insomnia, Ghada Harazallah, nationwide director of the Youngsters’s Villages in Palestine, says, including that their mission – defending the kids – has not modified.
At sundown, the kids from Gaza and the kids who dwell within the Bethlehem Village can have a gaggle iftar to interrupt their Ramadan quick.
The construction of SOS Youngsters’s Villages worldwide encourages a family-style relationship among the many youngsters and between them and the grownup employees. One employees member is assigned as a “mum or dad” to every group of youngsters, who are raised in “household” clusters the place they will bond with one another.
