In Gaza's ruins, a grandmother keeps family and hope alive

With no shoes to protect their tiny dust-covered feet, Hiam Muqdad’s grandchildren toddled unfazed through the bombed-out ruins of their Gaza City neighbourhood in search of clean water.

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The above images captured from a video shows Hiam Muqlad, 62, taking care of her three grandchildren as they face the struggles of living in a tent in the bombed-out ruins of their Gaza City neighbourhood where they struggle each day to find clean water, food, and even scraps needed to make a fire.

(ASIANEWS)

Clutching large black buckets and their grandmother’s hand, the infant trio seemed not to notice the scars left by two years of war, barely registering the enormous piles of rubble, warped metal and toppled buildings lining their path.

Muqdad, 62, told AFP she went out every morning with the children to search for water, sometimes finding enough for a few days and sometimes not at all.

"Children no longer say ‘I want to go to nursery or school’ but rather ‘I want to go get water or food or a food parcel’," she said. "The child’s dream is gone. In the past they used to go to the park but today children play on the rubble.”

Reaching a mound of broken breeze blocks, the children, whose parents live in the southern city of Khan Younis, diligently scrambled for scraps that could be used to make a fire.