They Hold Their Children: How Palestine Cares for Its Orphans
Different Mission
When Western systems encounter orphaned or displaced children, they build a pipeline. Databases get created. Paperwork gets processed. Children move across borders to paying strangers.
The child becomes a product, the family becomes a footnote, and the state calls the transaction appropriate.
Palestine does the opposite.
The Palestinian framework rests on kafala, a guardianship model rooted in Islamic law that provides full care without severing lineage. The child keeps their name and their true identity. The child stays within their caring community. The system exists to preserve, not erase.
State That Protects
The Palestinian Ministry of Social Development runs the national orphan care system. It provides cash assistance, sponsorship programs, protection services, and psychosocial support.
As of April 2026, the Ministry reported over 64,000 orphans in Gaza and affirmed its commitment to “safeguarding their property and preventing any form of exploitation or neglect.”
The language matters. The state is protecting children within their own society. A separate report emphasized that orphans need “long-term alternative care arrangements, legal guardianship, and long-term psychological, social, and economic support.” The framework plans for permanency inside the community, not outside it.
Villages and Schools
SOS Children’s Villages Palestine operates in Gaza and the West Bank, providing temporary care for unaccompanied and separated children. Its stated approach: “promote the integration of children within their families and communities whenever this is possible and safe, in line with the United Nations Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.”
The organization evacuated 68 children from Gaza to Bethlehem in March 2024 for temporary care while maintaining their connection to their community.
Al-Baraka Orphanage Camp, also called Orphans City, is a grassroots initiative in Al-Mawasi. Founded by educator Mahmoud Kalakh, the camp hosts between 400 and 600 displaced families, including widows and orphans.
It provides shelter, food, water, medical care, and a makeshift school offering Arabic, English, and mathematics. Kalakh understood that survival requires dignity, structure, and emotional care alongside food and shelter.
The Academies of Hope, a network of free private schools for war orphans, sprouted quietly across Gaza. Founded by a Palestinian American neurosurgeon, the schools give children a place to learn, to sit at a desk, to hold a pencil again. One twelve-year-old girl described the feeling: “Here, it is safe. No drones or bombs. The best thing is sitting at a desk and seeing the teacher and the board.”
Families Who Stepped In
Rami al-Arouqi and his wife Iman waited 24 years for a child. When they met a baby girl rescued from the rubble, orphaned and unidentified, they brought her into their home.
After navigating complex legal procedures, she joined their household under kafala, the guardianship model that preserves a child’s lineage. They named her Janna, meaning paradise. Rami said the experience “feels larger than any label.” He called it a blessing to care for her.
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Maha al-Rubaie, a 56-year-old unmarried woman, became a carer to her nephew’s son after his parents were killed. Hamza was born by emergency cesarean section in a hospital corridor minutes after his mother died from an Israeli bombing. Maha raises him now, watching him sleep, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. “I love him,” she says.
Amal Abu Khatlah, a nurse, took in an unidentified baby girl evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital. She named her Malak, meaning angel. What was supposed to be temporary care became permanent. “I grew attached to her. She clung to me, and I felt all the emotions of being her loved one. Walking away became unthinkable.”
Sponsorship That Honors the System
The Jerusalem Fund, under Moroccan leadership, expanded its orphan sponsorship program to include 350 children from Gaza. The program uses a digital platform that lets sponsors register, select the type of sponsorship, and track the child’s situation through regular reports.
The platform classifies children by need: those with amputations or permanent disabilities, those who lost both parents, those who are the sole survivors of their families.
The system keeps the children in their community. It keeps their identity intact. It provides support without demanding severance.
Heartbreaking Contrast
The West builds databases to move children. Palestine builds databases to care for them. The West seals records and falsifies certificates. Palestine registers children in a national system designed to protect their identity, human rights, and property. The West calls transfer ‘love.’ Palestine embraces something else entirely: a community holding its own children.
The Palestinian system carries imperfections. The Ministry acknowledges gaps: incomplete legal frameworks, gender disparities, and resources overwhelmed by the horrific scale of the crisis. But the intent remains unmistakable. Their system exists to preserve. The Western system exists to traffic.
That is the difference. These are people who, when their children are orphaned, hold them. They name them, teach them, and love them. And the world watches while Israel kills them anyway.
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Sources:
Palestinian Ministry of Social Development. “MoSD: Over 64,000 Orphans in Gaza as We Continue Strengthening Protection and Care Programs on Arab Orphan Day.” April 2, 2026.
SOS Children’s Villages Palestine. “SOS Children’s Villages Palestine Continues to Provide Services to Children, Families and Youth in Gaza and the West Bank.” September 14, 2026.
The New Arab. “Children orphaned by genocide find safety and love in Gaza.” January 26, 2026.
The New York Times. “At These Gaza Schools, ‘Peace Building’ Is Part of the Curriculum.” February 17, 2026.
Aurora Luminaries. “Mahmoud Kalakh.” December 1, 2025.
KOHA.net. “‘He’ll call me mom’: The story of a Gaza woman raising an orphan.” March 28, 2026.
WAFA Agency. “بدعم مغربي: ‘بيت مال القدس’ توسّع برنامج كفالة اليتيم ليشمل أطفالًا من غزة.” April 30, 2026.
Institute for Palestine Studies. “ليسوا جميعاً سواء: تحليل جندري لآثار اليُتم على الفتيات والفتيان في فرص التعليم والحماية في فلسطين.”
Ministry of Social Development. “Alternative care interventions included admitting 50 children to the SOS Children’s Village.”
