“Stolen childhood” and “Unchilding children”. Victims of war and aggression in Palestine highlighted at Sheffield Station.

Palestine protesters gathered on Friday evening outside Sheffield Station for the weekly rally. It was a special event to remember the child victims of war and aggression. As Palestine flags waved and cars hooted support, Annie O’Gara from the Sheffield Coalition against Israeli Apartheid explained: “You might say all child victims of war and aggression are by definition innocent, and the children of Palestine are indeed just such children. I’d like to start with a quotation from Nelson Mandela. He said, “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children”. And if that’s true, and I believe it is, history will judge Israel and, actually, the wider enablers of Israel in the West very, very harshly indeed. Because when I think about the children of Palestine, that’s from the river to the sea, all the children of Palestine, two phrases come to mind. One of them is “stolen childhood”, and the other phrase is the process of “unchilding children”. And both of these expressions are about the systematic, the deliberate and the very cruel ruination of a period of life that is so important and so precious and which cannot be replaced. A whole generation of Palestinian children is growing up facing the devastating impacts of occupation, apartheid and genocide.

The impacts are on education, health, family stability, psychology, and the sheer issue of children’s play and growth. And the war on Gaza has been a war on children. Approximately 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza, and a staggering number, 39,000, have lost one or both parents, and there is a shocking initialism that originated in Gaza. It is WCNSF. Wounded child, no surviving family. Why are there so many? Is it just collateral damage? Or is it a project to rob the Palestinian children of their future? Because children are the future of everyone of us standing here. And an amazing statistic, a really good statistic, 30% of the families in Gaza have actually taken in somebody else’s child. There is no social security, no social services left. But the people have stepped up, and they are providing care and love and compassion for these children who have been hit so hard by Israel. And the attack on Palestinian children has also been an attack on the people and the groups who defend and support them. And just one example is Defence of the Child International Palestine. We’ve drawn on DCIP for decades. They’ve been working for nearly 40 years in Palestine, throwing a spotlight on what’s happening to children, throwing a spotlight on child prisoners and the abuse of children generally. And then after this number of years of tireless work, they’ve been forced to close, because Israel has declared them to be a terrorist organisation. Along with other equally admirable Palestinian groups, a terrorist organisation. And to its eternal shame, countries in the EU withheld funding from the DCIP. and the Israeli occupation forces ransacked their offices and essentially made life and work impossible.

We focused on child prisoners previously, 300 from Gaza and all the children who have just vanished without a trace, never to be seen again. And tonight we’re reflecting on all the other children whose very life is a form of imprisonment. But as we so often see, they amaze us, taking on adult responsibilities, carrying water, foraging for fuel, caring for others, some even going out to earn some money, whatever they can, to support a family. These children are indeed victims. But in so many cases, they are determined little heroes, admirable with strengths that have come out of the oppression that’s been inflicted on us. and they command our total respect and, most importantly, our total commitment to work for the betterment of their lives.

Hilary shared a photo of Rateb Abu Qaliq, a 9-year-old who had lost his leg in an Israeli air strike that also killed his mother.

She explained, “This is 9-year-old Rateb Abu Qaliq, and Rateb was injured in an Israeli air strike when he and his family were trying to get to a so-called safe zone ordered by the Israelis. And in an air strike, his mother was killed, and he lost his leg. Ratib’s brother helped him to make a makeshift prosthetic leg using a PVC pipe. And why did he do that? He did that because he wanted his brother to play and to live alongside him. His brother Ratib still wants a proper prosthetic leg so he can run and play football again. But why is his brother having to do that? Because Israel continues to deny the entry of medical equipment, including prosthetics, and refuses to allow entry to the many specialists who want to work with the amazing Palestinian doctors to help fit them. And the other thing that I read this week was about the utter failure of the UK government to help the thousands and thousands of seriously injured children from Gaza, including the thousands who are amputees. Their failure to evacuate these children to the UK. It appears that in the last three years, and of course, the massacre and the injuring of Palestinian children didn’t start three years ago. There were many, many children suffering serious injuries from Israel way before that. But in total, the UK government has allowed only 50 children to come to the UK and most of them without their families. And Palestinian children, because they’re resourceful, because they’re brave, and because they have to stand up for their own rights. Some of them went to parliament 3 days ago and asked the UK government why it isn’t doing more to help the thousands and thousands of Palestinian children, not just the injured, but the children who are suffering from cancer and other serious diseases. There are two boys, Ubaida and Mahmoud, that did come here, I think in 2025. And Ubaida, who is in a wheelchair and facing many, many operations, said, “I want to say that the children of Gaza are just as valuable as children elsewhere”. His friend Mahmoud, who is a bit younger, I’m not sure how old he is, talked about having a kidney removed. Mahmoud has had to face all that without his family, without his parents, without his brothers and sisters, and Mahmoud said people think that we are happy to be in the UK, but without our parents, without our brothers and sisters, we are not alive. Last year, Starmer met, I think, with both of these boys. He certainly met with Ubaida. And he promised at that meeting, and they were thrilled at that time to have an invitation to meet with the Prime Minister of this country and thought that some form of justice was going to be carried out. And Ubaida says that Starmer said to them, “We will be bringing more children here. We will be bringing a total of 300.” And actually, that’s a pitiful total. And we will be bringing your family over. And here we are in May 2026. Lies, lies, lies. These children have not come. And Ubaida and Mahmoud are still without their family, without their parents, without their brothers and sisters. And I read this news, which I found because we were having this special day today. I found it on the internet, not because it’s all over the mainstream news. And I contrasted that with the news that I heard yesterday, which was that our government is bothered about the NHS. What is it bothered about? It’s bothered about stopping doctors and nurses from wearing badges to say that they want to stand up against the genocide. It’s about stopping our doctors and nurses from wearing their uniform on marches and demonstrations when all they are doing is asking for lives to be saved. And instead of that, instead of bringing children here, instead of stopping sending arms and weapons to support the Israeli genocide, what is our government doing? It’s talking about badges and badges upsetting people. That’s the shame of our government. But let’s remember the resilience and the bravery of Palestinian children.

After the rally, protesters continued to the station forecourt where the Tadhamon Singers performed 4 songs about Palestine.