Letters for Palestinian childhoods

Les escribo desde México. Parecería que nuestras tierras están muy alejadas en distancia física pero no lo están en la distancia de nuestros corazones con los de ustedes. Quiero decirles que estoy muy enojada por la...

You’ve been in a dark nightmare for too long. I don’t know if a few days of ceasefire allowed for some relief. I hope so, I hope you're warmed up a bit, I hope you're fed, and I hope you've been able to sleep quietly....

Dear children of Palestine You are as precious as the tiny beads that together shape the words Free Palestine. As each bead is carefully placed, they tell the story of a Free Palestine. I am so sad and angry that you...

This is a photo of a little boy standing in front of a pretend moon. He is three years old. He’s hitting it because he thinks it is a drum, his favourite toy. Above him is the real moon. It’s a crescent shape. He says...

I saw your picture in the first page of a newspaper very far from where you live. You are only 9 years old wearing a non-sleeves T-shirt and barefoot. You were at the morgue, crying and caressing the face of your...

I don’t know your name, and this haunts me. I want to say your name, to keep you alive. Because I don’t know if you are or not. But when I close my eyes, I see you. Your hands are chalked, grey, from the particles of...

My mother was a child of war in a cellar she hid with her mother while the bombs - silent ones which would suddenly burst - crushed homes on the street and she waited for father to return My father was a young man of...

When I was a little girl, I was scared of the dark. I used to slip into my grandmother’s bed in the middle of the night, and nestled against her, all nice and warm, I used to say: “ can you tell me a story?”...

Image: Art,created by Jorge Arbach (Brazil)

The world is dark outside and in, The noise is scary, Even if you put your fingers in your ears. You are hungry, wet and cold, Where is daddy gone? Why is mummy crying? Why is the world so hostile and unsafe? Home is...

This Saturday, November 25, my daughter Laura turns 4 years old.  She wants a unicorn cake and lots of balloons.  It's hard for me not to have mixed feelings when, while I  buy her balloons and look for...

This is a letter to the 400 children in Beit Lahia, Maghazi, Deir el-Balah and Rafah who joined the Canaan Institute / Centre for Global Education programme in June and produced the most magical arts and crafts. You...

I saw your father holding you, wrapped in white. You were born in this atrocity and killed just two days later. We were told that your death certificate was printed...

I have watched many times the short heart wrenching clip of you mourning the death of your beloved bird, killed due to airstrikes in your community. I am writing to let you know that I have thought of you often with...

I write you as the state of Israel executes a genocide against you. I wonder what would happen if every time the state of Israel kills a Palestinian child, an Israeli Jewish child vanishes? Disappears?  As the...

So much has changed in your life since your 3rd birthday celebrations on the 30th September. Your mum sent me videos then of you riding in a big blue car in an arcade, bouncing up and down with your contagious laugh....

Pienso en ustedes jugando en el Return Park, en el campamento de Malika, y escucho en mi mente sus voces, sus risas, sus gritos de felicidad y de júbilo. Los veo corriendo, saltando y tomándose de las manos, cantando y...

My dear boy and my dear children, When my son was 5 years old, he drew these monsters for me, cut them out and stuck them above my bed – they are good helpful monsters. My son told me he made them to protect me and,...

I’m not a cat person. My sister has a cat, she is very mean. But I like your cat. She seems sweet. And I love her because you love her. You saved her from the first floor of a bombed building, while traumatized...

One of the first images I saw coming out of the Gaza bombings was of you.  I saw parts of the clip twice but could not watch the entire video.  I assume you are about 8-9 years old. You were wounded and...

My heart leaps as I watch you race eagerly to slide down the hill. You speed past each other. But you reach out so that you are not separated as the ground flies by. I smile as I see you pulling each other back up the...