No explosions woke anyone up, and no tents trembled under the sound of shelling. Instead, the city awoke to chants of praise and joy, to the laughter of children echoing once again through shattered alleyways.

At first, the little ones couldn’t believe the war had truly ended. They ran between the tents, waving flags and chanting the name of their city — the city that had never failed them, even after everything was taken from it.

Two years of hunger and deprivation These children, who grew up too soon, endured two years of hunger and fear. They fell asleep to the hum of warplanes and woke to clouds of dust and debris. Today, they are rediscovering what happiness means. They raise their tiny hands toward the sky, smiling through sorrow — as if to tell the world that Gaza, which has bled for so long, is still alive and beating with hope.

A declaration of life from under the ashes In front of their simple tents, they stood in unison, chanting “Allahu Akbar” with reverent voices — a hymn of life after death. Those chants were more than words; they were a declaration of the soul’s victory over war, the rebirth of childhood from beneath the ashes. Their joy was so pure it brought tears, their simplicity more genuine than all the speeches and promises of reconstruction.

A reflection of a nation’s story In their small faces was mirrored the story of a nation that resisted hunger and destruction; in their bright eyes shone the image of a Palestine unbroken by cruelty. Every child’s laughter carried a message to the world: Gaza has not died, and its children can still sow joy in a land exhausted by fire.