Yazin, 12, one of 20,000 Gaza orphans

Yazin, 12, and his sister, Yazmin, 8, used to live in a house. But that changed after the Israeli attacks on Gaza that followed the October 7 Hamas attack. 

“We were sitting after the evening prayer. My sister and I were playing on the phone. Suddenly the lights went out. I felt the house lift up. and then fall back down on us,” Yazin said.

“I saw the roof had collapsed. it was one cm above my headI pulled my sister out. We started to yell, ‘Shout if you are alive!’ But no one answered.

Both of his parents and his brother were killed.

Now he lives in a tent near the sea with his grandfather, aunt, and two cousins. But his grandfather has terminal cancer, so Yazin feels it’s up to him to take care of the family.

Channel 4, a British public broadcasting service, posted a short documentary about Yazmin 10 months ago. Food was scarce, but there wasn’t yet a famine. 

Yazin’s sister, Yazmin, was going to school two hours a day. Yazin was spending his days getting water and food and dealing with other family duties. But in the evening, he found half an hour to fly a kite. “I feel the freedom. I want to fly instead of the kite,” he said.