In the heart of Gaza, the smallest voices are asking the hardest questions. “Where are we going next?” a child asks his father, after being forced yet again to leave what little shelter his family had found. This simple cry captures the tragedy of children living amid war, who have been uprooted so many times that even the idea of home has become uncertain.
According to Franciscan Friar Ibrahim Faltas of the Custody of the Holy Land, the trauma of these repeated displacements is devastating: “Children pay the highest price” when forced to live through death, pain, and insecurity. Their earliest years — meant to be a time for stability, faith formation, and play — are instead shaped by fear and loss, according to Vatican News.
Friar Faltas explains that forming these young people in a true “culture of peace” is both urgent and demanding. “Every day, I experience the urgency of providing our children and young people with instruments that allow for genuine peaceful coexistence,” he says, noting that children have an “innate capacity to recognise what is good, to welcome differences rather than judge them” (Vatican News).
But parents in Gaza have no easy answers for their children. “They cannot reassure their children that they are going to a beautiful place, because the destruction around them has scarred their land. They cannot promise that they will finally find safety and begin to recover lost serenity,” Faltas laments (Vatican News).
For Catholics, these words are a call to prayer and action. The Church reminds us that each child is made in the image of God, deserving not only life but also dignity and peace. Friar Faltas urges all believers to “continue to believe, to pray, and to hope for peace,” even when violence seems endless.
Our faith tells us that Christ Himself was once a child refugee, carried by Mary and Joseph into Egypt to escape death (Matthew 2:13-15). In every displaced child, we can see the Holy Family’s flight replayed — and we are invited to respond with compassion.
As we pray for an end to violence, let us also ask God to strengthen families, educators, and leaders so that the next generation may grow up not with fear, but with hope. May the children of Gaza one day hear the words Friar Faltas longs to speak: “The nightmare is over. You are going home … to rediscover friends and teachers, games, books, pencils, and notebooks” (Vatican News).
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