Category World News

Israel is engaged in a last-ditch bid to change the wording of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the next phase of United States President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan that was recently amended to mention a “credible pathway” to Palestinian statehood.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that his opposition to a Palestinian state had “not changed one bit”, one day before the UNSC votes on the US-drafted resolution, which would mandate a transitional administration and an international stabilisation force (ISF) in Gaza.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Netanyahu’s government was engaged in a last-minute diplomatic push to alter the draft resolution, which the US had changed to include more defined language about Palestinian self-determination under pressure from Arab and Muslim countries expected to contribute troops to the ISF.

The draft now says that “conditions may be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” after reforms to the Palestinian Authority are “faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced”.

There has been criticism that Palestinian voices and aspirations have been sidelined in the whole spectacle of Trump’s Gaza plan from its launch, which came with the US president’s customary fanfare.

Later on Sunday, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions called on Algeria – a non-permanent member of the UNSC – to reject the plan for stabilisation forces to be deployed in Gaza.

In a statement, the resistance factions called the efforts “a new attempt to impose another form of occupation on our land and people, and to legitimise foreign trusteeship”.

“We direct a sincere and fraternal appeal to the Algerian Republic, government and people, to continue adhering to its principled positions supporting Palestine, and its steadfast rejection of any projects targeting Gaza’s identity and our people’s right to self-determination,” the statement added.

On Friday, a joint statement with eight countries – Qatar, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan and Turkiye – urged “swift adoption” of the draft resolution by the 15-member UNSC. Potential contributors to the force have indicated that a UN mandate is essential for their participation.

Israel has already said it will not accept Turkiye, a key Gaza ceasefire mediator, having any role on the ground.

Turkiye has maintained staunch criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza over the past two years and recently issued arrest warrants for genocide against Netanyahu and other senior officials.

Ahead of Monday’s crucial vote, which is expected to garner the nine votes needed to pass, with the likely abstention of Russia and China, Netanyahu confidants and officials from the Foreign Ministry were said to be engaged in intensive talks with their US counterparts, according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan).

Netanyahu under pressure

A far-right walkout over the ceasefire plan, in which Trump has heavily invested his own prestige, could bring down Netanyahu’s right-wing government well before the next election, which must be held by October 2026.

On Sunday, Israeli government officials lined up to express their opposition to any proposals backing a Palestinian state.

“Israel’s policy is clear: no Palestinian state will be established,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X.

He was followed by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who said on X that his country would “not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian terror state in the heart of the Land of Israel”.

Far-right firebrand and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the Palestinian identity an “invention”.

Hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a major backer of Israel’s settler movement who has been sanctioned by a number of countries for “incitement of violence” against Palestinians, urged Netanyahu to take action.

“Formulate immediately an appropriate and decisive response that will make it clear to the entire world – no Palestinian state will ever arise on the lands of our homeland,” he said on X.

Russia’s rival resolution

The UNSC resolution would give the UN’s blessing to the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan, which brought about a ceasefire after two years of genocidal war that has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians.

The ceasefire came into effect on October 10, although it has been repeatedly breached by Israel with near-daily attacks that have killed hundreds of people.

There has been plenty of jockeying ahead of the vote.

Meanwhile, Russia is circulating its own resolution to rival the US version, offering stronger language on Palestinian statehood and stressing that the occupied West Bank and Gaza must be joined as a contiguous state under the Palestinian Authority.

In a statement, Russia’s UN mission said that its objective was to “to amend the US concept and bring it into conformity” with previous UNSC decisions.

She was one of the staunchest supporters of Donald Trump, amplifying the America First agenda of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, but Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has had a public falling-out with the United States president.

Greene, one of the most vocal voices from Trump’s MAGA base, has increasingly been expressing her disagreements, accusing the Trump administration of prioritising foreign policy over pressing domestic issues, such as a cost-of-living crisis. She has particularly been critical of US military support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which she has called a genocide.

But the breakdown of their relationship came after Greene backed Democratic efforts to release files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was a friend of Trump’s.

On Friday, Trump announced he was revoking his endorsement of Greene as he used his Truth Social platform to call the 51-year-old lawmaker “wacky” and a “ranting lunatic”. A day later, he continued his broadside, calling her a “traitor” and a “disgrace” to the Republican Party.

In response, Greene said Trump is coming after her “hard”, seeking to “scare all the other Republicans before next week’s vote to release the Epstein files”.

On Saturday, the Republican lawmaker accused Trump of putting her life in danger, saying his online criticism has triggered a wave of threats against her.

So who is Greene, and why has her relationship with Trump broken down? How will it impact the MAGA base?

Who is Marjorie Taylor Green, the MAGA champion?

Greene’s interest in politics, according to the US broadcaster NBC News, began in 2016, when she began writing on topics supporting the far-right QAnon conspiracy theories.

She was elected to represent Georgia’s 14th Congressional District in 2020.

As a member of the US House of Representatives since January 2021, Greene has been a staunch Trump supporter and also stood by the president during the January 2021 Capitol Hill insurrection, which saw Trump supporters force their way into the US Capitol building to try to stop the certification of the presidential election victory of Trump rival and Democrat Joe Biden.

Greene said “January 6 was just a riot” and defended it as a movement to “overthrow tyrants”. But after a backlash, she said she had been joking.

Greene has been a vocal supporter of the conservative agenda in the US, calling herself anti-abortion, pro-gun and anti-immigration. She has backed the US building walls along its borders to prevent undocumented immigrants from entering the country.

Born Marjorie Taylor in Milledgeville, Georgia, in 1974, Greene graduated from the University of Georgia in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

She then began working in her family’s company Taylor Commercial, a construction and renovation company, and in 2002, she and her husband at the time, Perry Greene, took over the business. In 2012, Marjorie entered the fitness sector and opened a CrossFit gym that she expanded and eventually sold.

Which issues are creating divisions within Trump’s MAGA base?

In recent weeks, Greene has been critical of the US president’s policies, especially linked to the Epstein files, the cost of living crisis, healthcare and foreign policy.

Epstein files: On Wednesday, US lawmakers released more than 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate, putting Trump’s relationship with the sex offender under scrutiny.

Epstein died by suicide in prison in 2019 after being arrested on charges of sex trafficking of minors. Trump, who had a 15-year friendship with Epstein, denies all wrongdoing and has repeatedly stated that he was never involved in – or even knew about – Epstein’s sexual crimes.

But the US Department of Justice has repeatedly refused to release the court files, raising eyebrows – not least among Trump’s own Republican Party and MAGA base.

Greene has been critical of Trump’s handling of the Epstein files and has repeatedly said all the files should be released.

“The American people deserve full transparency into who was involved in these horrific acts,” she said on X on Thursday.

The US House of Representatives will vote on releasing all remaining sealed court files pertaining to Epstein this week.

Cost of living: In recent weeks, Greene has railed against Trump’s budget and spending policies and also accused Republicans of not paying enough attention to the cost of living crisis.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January, he has insisted that he would bring prices down in the US by bringing in more revenue to the government by imposing tariffs. He has also repeatedly said inflation is not currently a serious concern for the US economy.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of September, grocery prices have risen every month since Trump took office. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the price of electricity bills has also risen.

In an interview with former Trump Press Secretary Sean Spencer on Friday, Greene said: “President Trump and his administration [do] deserve a lot of credit for lowering inflation and holding it steady, but that doesn’t bring prices down. And so gaslighting the people and trying to tell them that prices have come down is not helping.”

“It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store. They know what they’re paying for their kid’s clothes and school supplies. They know what they’re paying for their electricity bills,” she said.

Healthcare costs: Greene has also accused Republicans of failing to grapple with rising healthcare costs, expressing her concerns about the issue as the government shutdown, the longest in US history, ended without a guarantee on tax credits for health insurance.

Democrats have proposed a bill for a three-year extension of the healthcare subsidies, which are due to expire at the end of this year.

“When the tax credits expire this year, my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” she wrote in an X post on October 7.

“Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!” she added.

Trump has proposed to send healthcare subsidies directly into people’s bank accounts.

Why has Greene accused Trump of deviating from his America First agenda?

During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly prioritised the interests of American citizens by promising more jobs and bringing down the cost of living.

But according to Greene, the president has not devoted time on domestic issues. She has been critical of US military support to Israel and became one of the first Republicans to call Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide.

She publicly took on Trump for military intervention in Iran in support of Israel.

Greene has also been opposed to the Trump administration sending more weapons to Ukraine as Europe’s deadliest war since World War II rages on. In July after Trump approved more military support to Kyiv, Greene, said on X: “MAGA voted for no more US involvement in foreign wars.”

In August, she also expressed dissent against the Trump administration’s $20bn economic support to Argentina, accusing the government of ignoring its America First agenda.

In an interview with NBC News this month, she said: “We didn’t elect the president to go out there and travel the world and end the foreign wars.”

“We elected the president to stop sending tax dollars and weapons for the foreign wars – to completely not engage any more,” she said, addeding: “One of the big campaign issues is Americans were fed up with foreign wars.”

How has Trump responded?

Announcing that he is withdrawing his endorsement of Greene in a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said all he sees “‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”

“She has told many people that she is upset that I don’t return her phone calls anymore,” Trump said.

“I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day.”

He also said she should not run for governor or senator of Georgia and accused Greene of going “far left” in her views.

In an interview with Fox News last week, Trump also defended his MAGA strategy and said MAGA was his idea. “I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else.”

On social media after the release of the Epstein files on Wednesday, he said it was a “hoax” by Democrats and said “a very bad or stupid Republican would fall into that trap.”

How has Greene responded?

Responding to Trump’s attack late on Friday, Greene said on X that she’s astonished about how hard Trump’s fighting “to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level”.

“But really most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America who are fed up with foreign wars and foreign causes, are going broke trying to feed their families, and are losing hope of ever achieving the American dream,” she said, adding that’s what she voted for.

“I have supported President Trump with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him,” she said.

“But I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump. I worship God, Jesus is my savior, and I serve my district GA14 and the American people.”

President Trump just attacked me and lied about me. I haven’t called him at all, but I did send these text messages today. Apparently this is what sent him over the edge.

The Epstein files.

And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other… pic.twitter.com/EcUzaohZZs

Many MAGA supporters have expressed their support to Greene after Trump’s attack against her.

“I respect President Trump but I stand with my Congresswoman @mtgreenee,” said Emory Roy, who works for Turning Point Action, the organisation founded by Trump supporter Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed in September.

“While we are seeing progress under President Trump’s Administration, I know the people of NWGA [Northwest Georgia] will stop at nothing until we get back to the founding principles that made this country so great,” she added.

Some MAGA users also began expressing their discontent with Trump after the feud.

“I voted for Trump three times and I regret it. I will not be voting for him in the midterms. I hope he loses,” one X user said on Saturday.

Another X user shared a similar view and said: “He’s lost his way from maga.”

What are the other controversies Greene has been a part of?

Greene has been a controversial figure, known for a combative style of dealing with politicians as well as journalists.

She told a journalist to “f*** off” during an interview last year. After then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron urged the US to back Ukraine, Greene said: “David Cameron needs to worry about his own country and, frankly, he can kiss my a**.”

Greene has faced criticism for her support for QAnon before being elected to Congress in 2020, even though she insists she has distanced herself from the ideology.

One of her theories included the claim that 9/11 was an inside job and there is no evidence that a plane had crashed.

“Some people claimed a missile hit the Pentagon. I now know that is not correct. The problem is our government lies to us so much to protect the Deep State, it’s hard sometimes to know what is real and what is not,” she said on X in 2020.

But a month after becoming a member of the House, she said: “9/11 absolutely happened. I remember that day, crying all day long, watching it on the news. And it’s a tragedy for anyone to say it didn’t happen. So that I definitely want to tell you all, I do not believe it’s fake.”

Shortly before being elected to the House, she said: “Muslims do not belong in government.”

In 2021, she posted an Islamophobic thread on X, saying: “It’s not irrational to fear Islamic terrorism or a religion that states it’s goal is world domination and the death of infidels,” drawing condemnation from House members.

In 2021, she was stripped of her House committee assignments over her past incendiary comments and her apparent support for violence against Democrats.

Greene has also been called out by House members for her racist views towards Black people.

According to a June 2020 Politico report, Greene called Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists “idiots” and compared them to neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members. The BLM movement, which highlights racial inequalities in the US, began after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a police officer in the US in June 2020 during an arrest.

Greene has also been accused of expressing anti-Semitic views. According to US media reports, in 2018, she had said in a Facebook post that the wildfires in California could have been caused by an international cabal tied to Jews. She has since deleted the post.

In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she compared anti-COVID measures such as wearing masks to the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear during the Nazi era.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy at the time condemned her views.

Earlier this week, a flight carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza landed in South Africa without documentation. The passengers were stuck on the plane for 12 hours before the South African authorities, who claimed they had not been informed by Israelis about the deportation flight, allowed them to disembark on humanitarian grounds.

The Palestinians on board had paid between $1,500 and $5,000 to a company called Al-Majd Europe to leave Gaza. The operation is run by a few Palestinians on the ground in coordination with the Israeli occupation authorities. At least two other such flights had already been made since June this year.

This is the latest scheme Israel is deploying to depopulate Gaza – a longstanding goal of its apartheid regime that goes back to the early 20th century.

Since the beginning of the Zionist movement, Palestinians have been perceived as a demographic obstacle to establishing a Jewish state. In the late 19th century, Theodor Herzl, one of the founding fathers of Zionism, wrote that the displacement of Arabs from Palestine must be part of the Zionist plan, suggesting that poor populations could be moved across borders and deprived of employment opportunities in a quiet and cautious manner.

In 1938, David Ben-Gurion, a key Zionist leader who would later become Israel’s first prime minister, made clear he supported forced “relocation” and saw nothing “immoral” in it. Part of this vision was carried out 10 years later during the Nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes in what Israeli historian Benny Morris has called “necessary” ethnic cleansing.

After 1948, Israel continued efforts to displace Palestinians. In the 1950s, tens of thousands of Palestinians and Palestinian Bedouins were forcibly transferred from the Naqab (Negev) desert to the Sinai Peninsula or Gaza, which was under Egyptian administration at that time.

After the June 1967 war, when Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it adopted a strategy of what it called “voluntary migration”. The idea was to create harsh living conditions to pressure residents to leave, including demolishing homes and reducing employment opportunities.

In parallel, “emigration offices” were established in the refugee camps of Gaza to encourage people who have lost any hope of return to their homes to leave in exchange for money and travel arrangements. Israel also encouraged Palestinians to go work abroad, especially in the Gulf.  The price Palestinians had to pay for leaving was never being allowed to come back.

After October 7, 2023, Israel saw another chance to carry out its plan of ethnically cleansing Gaza – this time through genocide and forced expulsion. It thought it had the necessary international sympathy and diplomatic capital to carry out such an atrocity, as statements by various Israeli officials, such as ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, show. They even came up with the so-called “General’s Plan” to fully depopulate northern Gaza.

The new scheme for forcing Palestinians out of Gaza fits well into this historical pattern. What distinguishes it, however, is that Palestinians are made to pay for their own forced displacement and their desperation is exploited by Palestinian collaborators who seek to make easy profit. This, of course, is meant to further the financial depletion of the Palestinian population and create more internal fissures and tensions.

This scheme, like previous ones, also has the central feature of denying Palestinians return. None of the passengers on the plane received Israeli exit stamps on their passports, which was the reason the South African authorities struggled with the admission process. Having no legal record of leaving the Israeli-occupied territory of Gaza means these people are automatically classified as illegal migrants and have no possibility of returning.

It is important here to clarify why Israel is allowing these flights to take place while impeding the evacuation of ill and injured Palestinians and students accepted in foreign universities. These exits of patients and students would be legal, and they imply the right to return – something Israel does not want to allow.

That there are Palestinians willing to fall for this flight scheme is unsurprising. Two years of genocide have driven the people of Gaza to unimaginable desperation. There are that many Gaza residents who would willingly board those planes. And yet, Israel cannot fly us all to South Africa.

Through decades of Zionist occupation, Palestinians have persevered. Palestinian steadfastness in the face of wars, sieges, home raids, demolitions, land theft, and economic subjugation confirms that the Palestinian land is not merely a place to live, but a symbol of identity and history that people are not willing to give up.

In the past two years, Israel has destroyed the lives and homes of two million Palestinians. And even that has failed to kill the Palestinian spirit and drive to hold onto the Palestinian land. The Palestinians are not flying out; we are here to stay.

On Thursday morning, a chartered plane carrying 153 Palestinians from war-torn Gaza – many without the required travel documents – landed at an airport near Johannesburg, leaving South African officials “blindsided”.

After nearly 12 hours of scrambling, the group was allowed to disembark into the care of a local charity organisation.

More details have emerged about the scheme run by “Al-Majd Europe”, through which activists argue Israel is advancing its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.

The Palestinian passengers were charged a hefty sum of money by the organisation, which says on its website that it coordinates “evacuations from conflict zones”.

Here is everything we know about the group’s transit so far and who’s behind Al-Majd Europe.

What happened in South Africa?

The plane full of people sat on a runway for nearly 12 hours while South African authorities tried to figure out why they did not have exit stamps or slips from when they left Gaza, according to officials from South Africa’s border agency.

They were also not sure when asked by immigration where they would stay or how long they planned to be in South Africa.

The government allowed them to leave the plane after charity organisation Gift of the Givers offered to accommodate them.

Officials said 23 Palestinians flew to other countries, without adding any more details.

“These are people from Gaza who somehow mysteriously were put on a plane that passed by Nairobi and came here,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Friday.

He added that “it does seem like they were being flushed out” of Gaza. South Africa’s intelligence services are investigating the incident.

What is the company that flew them to South Africa?

Behind the flight is Al-Majd Europe, which is accused of acting in coordination with Israeli authorities.

Loay Abu Saif, who fled Gaza with his wife and children to Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera on Friday that he had heard about it through a social media advertisement.

The Al-Majd Europe website says it was founded in 2010 in Germany, and the homepage has a pop-up warning about individuals pretending to be its agents, sharing phone numbers of “legitimate representatives”.

But the site itself has no address or phone number, providing just a location in Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem. However, Al Jazeera was not able to find an office there.

The website domain, almajdeurope.org, was only registered in February this year, while several links on the site lead nowhere. The email listed, info@almajdeurope.org, bounces back an automated message saying it does not exist.

Namecheap, which registered the domain, has been cited in several cybersecurity reports on online fraud because of its low-cost, easy sign-up process.

Al Jazeera learned that many people were told to pay via bank transfers to personal, not organisational, accounts.

Does Al-Majd Europe do what it says it does?

Among the links that work is a page with four “Impact Stories”.

One post about “Mona”, a 29-year-old from Aleppo, Syria, is dated March 22, 2023, even though the website was only registered 10 months later.

The narrative, written in “Mona’s” voice, expresses gratitude to Al-Majd for moving her and her mother “to a safe place” when they felt threatened in Lebanon, where they fled to in 2013.

The photo, however, shows Abeer Khayat, who was 33 when photographed by journalist Madeline Edwards in December 2024 in Tripoli, Lebanon, for Middle East Eye.

The online form reads: “For Gaza residents currently inside the Gaza Strip only!

“Do you aspire to travel and start a new life? We are here to help you!”

How did people end up on that flight?

The Palestinian families, with a pregnant woman among them, boarded the plane not knowing their final destination, having paid Al-Majd $1,400 to $2,000 each – the price for children the same as adults.

Saif, who was on the plane, said he hadn’t known when they would leave Gaza until a day before, when he was told passengers could only take a small bag, a mobile phone, and some cash.

They were taken by bus from southern Gaza’s Rafah to the Karem Abu Salem crossing (known as Kerem Shalom in Israel), where they were checked, then transferred to Israel’s Ramon Airport, without Israeli authorities stamping their travel documents.

Another person interviewed by Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity said: “The … applicant must [have a young] family. [Then] the names are sent for security screening. Once that’s completed, and if the family is approved, they’re asked to pay,” he said.

“There had been prior coordination with the Israeli army for the buses to enter Rafah,” he said. “The process was only routine.”

The group left from Ramon in a Romanian aircraft and transited through Nairobi, Kenya, before landing in Johannesburg.

Have there been similar flights before?

A man who was on board the plane told Al Jazeera there had been a similar flight to Indonesia in June.

Al-Majd’s website also claims to have facilitated a trip for “a group of doctors working in hospitals in the Gaza Strip” who it flew to Indonesia “for further studies and advanced medical training”. However, this post is dated April 28, 2024.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the authenticity of this post and a photograph of the group in it.

Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman, who alleged that Al-Majd was one of “Israel’s front organisations”, told AP that this was the second plane to arrive in South Africa.

Another plane arrived with more than 170 Palestinians on board on October 28, but that flight was not announced by authorities.

What did Palestine say?

The Palestinian Embassy in South Africa said in a statement that the flight was arranged by “an unregistered and misleading organization that exploited the tragic humanitarian conditions of our people in Gaza, deceived families, collected money from them, and facilitated their travel in an irregular and irresponsible manner”.

A mobile skatepark moving between displacement camps in Gaza is providing rare mental health support to children trapped in one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, where trauma and grief are rife.

Amid the wreckage of Gaza City, where collapsed buildings and twisted concrete dominate the landscape, a group of young Palestinians has transformed the destruction into an unlikely playground.

Since the fragile ceasefire began on October 10, skateboard coaches have been running sessions that offer traumatised children brief moments of freedom and normalcy.

“We used to have skateparks in the Gaza Strip; this was our dream here in Gaza,” said Rajab al-Reifi, one of the coaches working with the children. “But unfortunately, after we finally achieved that dream and built skateparks, the war came and destroyed everything.”

The skateboarding initiative operates against a backdrop of continuing Israeli violence despite the ceasefire.

Israeli forces have killed at least 260 Palestinians and wounded 632 others since the truce began on October 10, with attacks occurring on 25 of the past 31 days.

Making do with what’s left

The sessions face severe challenges.

With equipment shortages across Gaza, every skateboard wheel and piece of wood has become precious. Al-Reifi often repairs damaged boards between sessions, knowing replacements are nearly impossible to obtain.

One of the few flat courtyards to survive Israel’s bombardment provides a training ground for beginners, while more adventurous skaters have turned piles of rubble and collapsed walls into makeshift ramps and obstacles.

Rimas Dalloul, another dedicated coach, works to keep the children engaged despite the dire conditions.

“We don’t have enough skateboards for everyone, and there is no protective gear,” she explained. “Their clothes are all they have to help cushion them when they fall. They get injured sometimes, but they always come back. The desire to play is stronger than the pain.”

‘I used to run from bombardment to skate’

Among the young skaters is seven-year-old Marah Salem, who has been practicing for seven months.

“I come here to have fun. I don’t want to skip any sessions; I want to be consistent,” she said. “Even during the war, I used to skateboard. I used to run away from the bombardment to skate on the streets.”

Her determination reflects a broader resilience among Gaza’s children, who have endured nearly two years of Israeli military assault.

The skateboarding sessions offer children a form of recreation and a temporary escape, but also a means to process trauma and a communal activity.

The mental health needs of Gaza’s children remain staggering.

Humanitarian organisations had already identified more than one million Palestinian children in need of mental health services before the latest conflict intensified.

The scale of the conflict means no child has been shielded from its psychological impact, with mass displacement, family separations, and widespread casualties affecting the entire young population.

At least 17,000 children are now unaccompanied or separated from their parents, while child protection cases surged by 48 percent in September alone, the International Rescue Committee reports.

For the young skaters, the sessions offer something that war has tried to take away, the simple freedom of childhood play.

Their schools have been decimated, their homes destroyed, and more than 658,000 school-age children have lost access to education for nearly two years.

Yet in the ruins of their neighbourhoods, these children are finding ways to move forward.