Tala Abu Hilal, 8, former star student

Before the war, Tala Abu Hilal, 8, was the star of her class and sometimes got up in the middle of the night to cram for tests, according to her mother. 

“I wanted to be a doctor,” Tala said in a recent interview. “I wanted my daddy to build a hospital for me. I wanted to treat everyone for free. My daddy is in heaven now.”

There’s no school now, and Tala whiles away the day inventing games, some of which are disturbingly warped by the violence that surrounds her. Once, her mother recalled, Tala picked up a stone and said to her sisters: “I’ll throw this stone. Pretend it’s an F-16 missile.”

Then she hurled it at a tent.

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