Growing Up Palestinian in Palestine by M. Reza Behnam

 Childhood is meant to be a journey of gradual awakenings; an accumulation of sunlit afternoons, scraped knees, carefree school days and the gradual safe unfurling of identity.  

However, for a Palestinian child growing up in the Israeli killing fields of Gaza or the occupied West Bank there is no such protected sanctuary.  In the West Bank, children are forced to navigate a labyrinth of state-engineered obstacles—concrete walls, checkpoints, barriers, surveillance, military raids and attacks by squatters (“settlers”). They mature in the shadow of the “separation” wall; concrete slabs that dictate whether they can visit family, play in open fields or reach needed medical care.  

The sounds of military occupation that punctuate a child’s day are ominous. Waking up in the night to armed soldiers forcefully breaking into family homes, shouting indignities and commands, leaves a lasting fear and deep imprint on the minds of young children long after dawn.  

In the concentration camp of Gaza, children simply hope for another day.

Generations have come of age treating the horizon itself as an unbearable limit.

Children under occupation absorb the anxieties of their parents long before they have the vocabulary to understand it.  The trauma of seeing parents humiliated and abused by soldiers or seeing family homes demolished, leaves children with memories unaltered by time. 

Under occupation, play gives way to hypervigilance.  Children learn early to read soldiers, calculate safe routes to-and-from school and to live with daily fear and doubt.     

Numerous international agencies, like the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and mental health coalitions have documented high rates of psychological distress among Palestinian youth, manifesting as chronic anxiety, sleep disorders, bed wetting and deep feelings of helplessness.  The trauma is not episodic.  Because the occupation and violence are continuous, the emotional and physical wounds remain perpetually open.  

Under occupation, school is not a safe harbor.  In the West Bank, children experience school days—often interrupted—under severe duress.  The perilous walk to school involves navigating unexploded ordnance, military checkpoints, “security” barriers and active threats from squatters and soldiers. 

With over 95 percent of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, only a fraction —roughly one-third of the roughly 700,000 school-aged children—have access to limited, informal makeshift tent classrooms. The vast majority remain out of school.  In spite of all obstacles, Palestinian children maintain a fierce commitment to education; one of the few tools of self-determination left in their hands. 

Childhood in Palestine is defined by contradiction. 

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