Jamila, a quiet child with a lovable personality and a warm smile, studies in the seventh grade in the city of Bethlehem.

Cradled gently in the arms of a rescue worker was a tiny baby boy, just one day old, with a tuft of dark hair and a wrinkled face. "His mother was injured and died while giving birth," explained the worker with a heavy heart. This baby, so new to the world, already carried the weight of loss and chaos, but he would be safe here.

“The children were expected to regress after such a long break from school, but when I heard from Ruba’s teacher about her progress in classroom skills and the assessment of her speed of memorization, I was very optimistic,” said Mutaz Lubbad, a psychologist at the SOS Children’s Village Rafah program, who is working with the children in Bethlehem.

Nabila has 6 children and her husband is almost deaf. Through the FSP program of SOS Palestine, she has been able to generate a small income by sewing clothes and processing fabrics so that she can better support her 3 daughters and 3 sons. 

Wisam was born to a family of 7 members who joined the Family Strengthening Programme in 2018. He is now 21 years old and has graduated from Al-Quds Open University Branch of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Accounting. He chose to follow his dream since he was a schoolboy, he invested all his time in education.

Amal, nine years old, joined the short-term care of SOS Children’s Villages in March 2021. To facilitate her reintegration into her biological family, she visits them during holidays. However, when she visited them this time, she could not go back to the SOS Children’s Village in Rafah because of the continuous bombardment. Amal went to spend Eid Al-Fitr holidays with her family, but she could not enjoy the end of the fasting month of Ramadan like other children her age around the world because the bombings on Gaza started a few days before the celebration. Luckily, the area where her family lives was not affected by the attacks, and she and her family are all safe.