In Gaza, childhood is being stripped of even the most basic dignity. With crossings sealed and aid obstructed for over two months, families are left clinging to whatever they can find to protect their little ones. One of the cruelest symbols of this blockade is not the rubble or the hunger—it is the plastic sheet wrapped around a baby in place of a nappy.

Inside makeshift shelters turned from classrooms into survival zones, parents face impossible choices. There are no diapers left in the markets. When they do appear, they’re priced beyond reach—costing more than many can earn in weeks. Desperation has pushed families to use old rags, grocery bags, and even scraps of plastic, exposing babies to painful skin infections and unbearable discomfort in the sweltering heat.

The siege has made the most routine tasks impossible. Washing cloths in polluted water only worsens the suffering. Pharmacies are shuttered, medical clinics overwhelmed, and humanitarian convoys wait helplessly at closed borders. Children, already robbed of safety, are now left without the simplest hygiene or care.

Amid the despair, rare glimmers of relief come in unexpected forms. A message offering a single pack of nappies can bring a parent to tears—not from joy, but from the weight of exhaustion and fear. In Gaza today, protecting a child from pain is no longer a right—it’s a distant hope.

This isn’t collateral damage. It is a deliberate chokehold on a civilian population. And while world leaders debate, Gaza’s children endure. Their cries don’t echo beyond the walls of their shelters—but they carry the truth of a siege that suffocates innocence one day at a time.