The battle after the war: Healing Gaza's traumatised children

CNN takes a three-pronged approach—medical care, education, and advocacy—to touch the lives of hundreds of Gaza's children. With the bombs silent for the time being, the organisation knows that this is "a moment of reckoning".

Somaya says: "The greatest mistake we can make now is to assume that the ceasefire is a happy ending. In fact, Palestinians in Gaza are confronting the reality of death. Families returning home send us images of devastation—sometimes only a washbasin remains. There is nothing but dust, rubble, twisted metal, and the remnants of shrapnel."

A mother-of-two, Somaya left behind her life as a lawyer in December 2023 and set about dedicating her life to setting up CNN. Her co-founder, Sarah, a fellow lawyer, also resigned to do something about the harrowing images she was seeing flashing across her screen.

CNN is a minnow. Many international humanitarian organisations have United Nations backing, vast resources, and enormous budgets. Yet their vision does not lack ambition. It stretches far beyond from provision of immediate relief to helping Palestinians rebuild their lives in Gaza.

"First, it is about the medical infrastructure; no society can survive without it," says Sarah. "Second is educational infrastructure; no society thrives without it. Third is legal infrastructure; without justice, there is no lasting rehabilitation. You cannot rebuild hospitals and schools if people are denied access to their fundamental rights."

For the CNN team, life after war is only possible if the world recognises Gaza for what it has become: a land stripped of its ability to sustain existence.

Medical evacuations

On 3 February 2025, the Rafah crossing opened for the first time since May 2024. Children suffering from cancer and heart disease were evacuated in a group of 50 patients transferred to hospitals in Egypt.

CNN produced a video highlighting the case of a young Palestinian girl who it had helped recover from psoriasis, a disease that had ravaged her skin. It served as a stark reminder of the urgent need to evacuate injured and critically ill children. Despite providing Maryam with medicine, food, shelter, and care from paediatric and dermatology specialists, her condition deteriorated due to their dire living conditions and lack of access to treatment. 

In November 2024, CNN secured approval for her to leave Gaza. "With the assistance of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we successfully evacuated her to the UAE," says Somaya. "But there are currently no scheduled medical evacuation missions out of Gaza. Medical evacuations must resume now."

This is just one of many stories shared with Al Majalla by Dr Sherif Yasser Matar, a paediatric consultant and director of field treatment at CNN. "The situation in this part of the world is even more dire than one can imagine," says Dr Matar. "A brutal phase has ended, with more than 14,500 Palestinian children killed, but the ceasefire has also halted medical evacuations."

"From 19 January to 3 February, no child in need of urgent treatment could leave Gaza. The process has now even more complicated, as it has shifted to the Abu Salem crossing at Kerem Shalom, where decisions are made by COGAT (Israeli occupation authorities) and the WHO. Evacuation missions are rare, and only a handful of children are included. Hundreds remain in critical condition. Many have died not from bombings but from preventable and treatable diseases."

Dr Matar recalls Lana al-Ghafri, a child suffering from severe heart disorders who was admitted to intensive care six times. She was scheduled to be evacuated with the Turkish medical mission in late January, but travel procedures were suddenly suspended—leaving her, along with dozens of other children, stranded.

"Some children waited for evacuation only to die before they could leave. Newborns were granted permission to travel, but their mothers were denied the right to accompany them—so they never left," Dr. Matar says.

Specialised care

Despite the huge challenges, CNN managed to evacuate and treat several children during the brief Rafah crossing opening. Among them was six-month-old Sadeel Hamdan, who had a blocked bile duct that led to liver failure.

She required urgent treatment but, four months later, had still not been treated. CNN finally helped her transfer to Egypt, where, thanks to private funding, she underwent a life-saving liver transplant with her father as the donor. Today, she still receives medical support from the organisation.

"In less than a year, we have evacuated more than 200 children and their caregivers from Gaza to Qatar, the UAE, Belgium, Romania, Albania, and Egypt," says Somaya. "We work closely with the WHO, the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and others, and will soon work with Turkey as well."

CNN has provided medical care to more than 400 women, including prenatal and postnatal support, through two clinics, she says. "We screened 40 premature infants at risk of blindness and delivered physical therapy to more than 100 children, supported by ten physios both in clinics and through home or tent visits."

The organisation also works with senior physiotherapists outside Gaza who develop rehabilitation programmes that are then translated into Arabic. Parents are trained to apply these therapies. "As a result, we see children take their first steps, babies lifting their heads and sitting up for the first time."

More than 45 Palestinian doctors in Gaza specialising in paediatrics, hepatology, cardiology, neurology, and surgery now work with CNN for a monthly income, while a dedicated medical team has been set up in Cairo to help the evacuees.

Lost education

The war in Gaza has meant that education has come second to mere survival. Since October 2023, more than 630,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have had no schooling. Earlier this month, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Farida Shaheed, said more than 90% of Gaza's schools had been partially or entirely destroyed.

CNN regards school education as fundamental as food, water, and medical care, and the foundation for Gaza's recovery, so it established a school serving 300 children aged 5-12. It employs seven teachers, a child psychologist, a child support specialist, a caregiver, and a cleaner.

The curriculum follows the Palestinian education system, covering Arabic, English, science, and mathematics, with Quranic studies set to be introduced. The school is officially accredited by the Ministry of Education. "The Minister visited and called it one of the best in Gaza," says Somaya proudly. "The ministry hopes to phase out the tent school model."

At the CNN school, there is sanitation and paediatricians visit up to four times a week for medical checkups. "Alongside academic instruction, we give psychological support, nutrition, and all necessary school supplies. We designed a visually appealing school environment because an uplifting atmosphere is crucial to children's well-being." 

In a video, Bassem, 10, is seen brushing his teeth, saying his prayers, and heading off to school—one of the few buildings still standing in the ruins. He says he is happy to be back at school after more than a year away and is seen writing in the classroom and playing sports in the schoolyard. For Bassem and others, this is not just a school; it is also a vital space for healing from the trauma of war.

Having to prioritise

CNN's first challenge was "the overwhelming and unrelenting cases of critically injured and chronically ill children," says Somaya. "The second was ensuring safe and legal financial transfers into Gaza from the UK. The third was securing financial support. We relied entirely on small individual donors, mostly in Europe. Unfortunately, many hesitate to fund anything related to Palestine."

Financial instability has compounded the problem. "Packs of diapers (or nappies) can cost $25 one week, $45 the next. Our programmes serve 200 families, so covering basic needs can become nearly impossible. We once had to allocate £10,000 just for a week's supply of diapers. The same applies to food. The model is unsustainable."

Supporting a child means supporting that child's siblings, says Sarah. "How can one child stay warm while three others in the same tent almost freeze to death?" CNN has given food baskets to more than 500 families and warm clothing to more than 650 children at a cost of nearly $80,000. It has also sponsored 71 orphans from 22 families after a donation from its first ambassador, professional footballer Anwar El Ghazi.

There are now 38,000 Palestinian children in Gaza orphaned by war, and according to a UN report in November 2024, "Gaza has become home to the largest group of child amputees in modern history". According to UNRWA, the UN agency set up to help Palestinians, ten children lose a leg every day. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said 4,000 children in Gaza had had at least one limb amputated.

Dr Matar attributes the surge in amputations among children in Gaza to two key factors. The first is the sheer force of explosions. The second is a dire shortage of medical resources, making amputation the only way to save the wounded.

Yet fitting prosthetic limbs is an immense challenge. Israel destroyed the only dedicated prosthetics hospital in Gaza at the start of the war. A Jordanian field hospital is now the sole provider of this service, but demand far exceeds supply.

Behind the staggering statistics is the daily ordeal of adapting to life without limbs in the absence of adequate support or rehabilitation. Helping child amputees regain basic mobility and independence using crutches and wheelchairs is now an urgent need, but few are available. Those that are can often be unsuitable for children due to their size.

Answering the call

Another issue the team has had to deal with is the alarming lack of paediatric dental care. Palestinian children in Gaza suffering from dental disease often do not get to see dentists, so CNN incorporated this need into its programmes and is currently trying to set up a dental clinic in Gaza specifically for children.

"The reality is that Gaza's infrastructure is in complete ruin," says Dr Matar. "No medicines, no supplies, no sterile environments. We see an alarming increase in heart failure among children, who require expensive and highly complex interventions, such as organ transplants—procedures that are simply impossible in Gaza."

Somaya has been surprised by who has donated. "Most of our donors are from Britain and Europe," she says. "Donations from Arab countries are almost non-existent. So, we appeal to Arab donors to support our efforts in Gaza. Costs are rising by the day." Glued to her screen, she describes "anger, rage, and grief" as details of wounded children flood in. "Pain binds our team together. We channel this suffering into action."

Dr Matar's own story is one of responding to a call. A young doctor, husband, and father-of-five, he regrets leaving northern Gaza and his family behind after Israel destroyed Rantisi Children's Hospital, where he worked. Later, he learned from colleagues that although the hospital had been partially restored, it could no longer provide intensive care or dialysis.

"My work with CNN is my response to the call of the medical profession, a code of honour. I uphold it for the children of Gaza and for my fellow doctors who were martyred or imprisoned, including my friend, Dr Mohammed Hamouda, who was arrested by Israeli forces while caring for his disabled mother in their home in Beit Lahia."

Dr Matar has yet to return to his own home in a city buried under 51 million tonnes of rubble. Thousands are gone, hundreds remain missing, yet despite the devastation, tens of thousands have returned to the land that witnessed their loss and disappearance. Theirs are long days of weeping, mourning, and endurance. None of them are just numbers.