"The Quiet Courage of Sisters: Childhood Unbroken in Gaza's Rubble"

Five-year-old Layla no longer asks where her parents are. The last time she did, her eight-year-old sister Noura froze while cleaning rust from a donated cooking pot. Now they sleep in a tent near the bombed hospital, its plastic walls patched with strips of torn clothing. When drones hum overhead, Noura covers Layla’s ears with her hands – a gesture she learned from their mother.

Noura’s mornings begin before dawn. She joins the line at the water truck, her empty bottles clinking against three others lashed to her back with rope. Last week, a boy pushed Layla out of the queue. Noura poured half her water into the sand to lighten her load, then carried her sister home. "We’ll drink less today," she said, wiping Layla’s dusty feet with a damp cloth.

Their meals come from aid packages – lentils, sometimes dates. Noura soaks the hardest biscuits in water to soften them for Layla’s loose tooth. At night, they play "school" with a broken pencil stub and paper salvaged from cement bags. "Write your name," Noura instructs, guiding Layla’s small hand. The letters wobble across the page: لَيْلَى.

When Layla coughs, Noura rubs her chest with mint leaves traded from a neighbor. She doesn’t mention the clinic that collapsed last month. Yesterday, she found a pair of outgrown sandals in the rubble. "Look," she smiled, adjusting the straps around Layla’s ankles, "perfect for walking to kindergarten someday."

Through Home Safe Haven, we can help children like Layla and Noura break free from the cycle of trauma. By providing nourishing meals, safe learning spaces, and essential healthcare, we give these sisters – and thousands like them – the foundation to rebuild their futures. Layla’s story echoes across Gaza’s shattered neighborhoods, where every scarred wall holds whispers of the same dream: to trade survival for childhood, and fear for possibility.