Despite the danger, Saad is determined to continue his mission
Gaza:
Braving the constant threat of airstrikes and bombardments, 15-year-old Youssef Saad, an oud player from Gaza, cycles through the war-torn streets of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, his instrument strapped to his back.
Saad sings to children who have had to endure the daily horrors of the 11-month conflict, trying to offer them some joy or distraction.
“The houses in my city were once full of dreams,” Saad says, looking out over the rubble of the decades-old urban refugee camp, which was built up and densely populated before the war.
“Now they're gone,” he says.
Saad studied at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in nearby Gaza City before the conservatory was destroyed in the war that devastated much of the enclave.
Now living with relatives after his own home was destroyed, he is one of five siblings whose future has been turned upside down.
His father, a government official in the Palestinian Authority, always supported Saad's dream of becoming a musician.
But now Saad’s focus has shifted. He spends his days at a Jabalia day center, playing his oud and singing to children traumatized by the war.
The latest bloodbath in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict broke out on October 7, when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli counts.
Israel's subsequent assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza has killed more than 40,800 Palestinians, displaced nearly the entire population and devastated the besieged enclave, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry.
“Every house has a tragedy,” Saad said. “Some have lost their mother, others their father, their neighbor or their friend.”
Despite the danger, Saad is determined to continue his mission.
“We try to improve their mental health, even if it means putting myself in danger,” he said. “This is my duty to the children.”
And he refuses to give up on his dreams for the future: “We, the children of Palestine, strive to remain resilient, even in the face of genocide.”
Saad says he lives by a saying that helps him through the darkest days: “If you live, live free, or die standing like trees.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published via a syndicated feed.)
