In a shattered corner of Gaza, a little boy named Mohammed sits motionless, his spirit as broken as the rubble around him. Just days ago, he was laughing, riding his bicycle through dusty alleys, and lighting up his home with an appetite for food and life. Today, he can barely speak, eat, or move.

An Israeli missile ended that joy. It struck near his home without warning. His friend collapsed onto him. “I’m hit,” Mohammed cried. Since then, he has not been the same. His mother, already worn down by hunger and grief, now watches her once-lively son fade into a silence she cannot break.

She can no longer afford bread, let alone medicine or the prosthetic limb he now needs. In a city under siege, she begs, not for luxuries, but for a basic chance for her child to heal, to grow, to simply be a child again.

Mohammed’s story is not rare, it is the story of Gaza’s children. Since October 2023, more than 16,500 have been killed, thousands more wounded, orphaned, or permanently traumatised. Gaza has become a graveyard of childhoods, where dreams are buried beneath the ruins and the world continues to look away.

Every day that passes without justice writes another line in this growing tragedy. Mohammed doesn’t need our pity, he needs action, dignity, and a world that finally puts children before politics.