What to Know
Kids play and use their imaginations based on things they have seen in real life. So when a group of Palestinian children were filmed reenacting a funeral with a small doll and a makeshift stretcher, it hit home for a lot of people. A Palestinian content creator reportedly filmed the children and it was later shared by media outlets on TikTok.
In the video, the children are in a displacement camp in Gaza. They are, for all intents and purposes, as safe as they can be for now, but they’ve already seen so much in their young lives that playing pretend with a funeral procession is what they know more than anything else. Children in the United States might play ‘house’ or something much more innocuous. And people were quick to point out the vast differences.
The kids act out a funeral with a shared doll.
@aljazeeraenglish A video published by a Palestinian content creator shows a group of children carefully lifting their doll on a stretcher to reenact a funeral as they play together in a displacement camp in Gaza.
♬ original sound – Al Jazeera English
In the video, the kids use a doll covered in dirt and place it on a stretcher made out of what appears to be the handle of a piece of luggage, though it’s not totally clear. The kids take turns placing the doll on the stretcher and then raising the stretcher high to walk around with it, presumably acting out a funeral.
There is no sadness in the children’s eyes, though, which might be the most haunting thing about the scene. The kids are playing what they know. And at this point, with the war in Gaza having lasted for more than three years, living in camps and surviving on what they can is what the kids know at this point in their lives.
Experts are saying the children are coping through play.
Early childhood educators and therapists commented on the TikTok to share their points of view. Most are in agreement that the children’s playtime is obviously governed by what they remember, which is trauma, death, and frequent funerals for loved ones and other people at the camp or outside of it.
“As a play therapist, my heart,” one commenter wrote. “I am so grateful they have this moment of safety to process in their own way. Children use play when they cannot access the words. God bless.”
Another person wrote, “Early Childhood Educator here, kids play out what they live. Let this sink in.”
“As a mental health therapist with a background in play therapy, this breaks my heart,” someone added in the comments.
At some points in the video, the kids are even smiling, because this is all they know as their life, and to reenact it at playtime is normal for them.
Parents chimed in too. One dad wrote, “As a father of two toddlers, these children are more strong than I can ever be.”
A mom commented, “As a mother this breaks my heart.” Clearly, the kids are imitating what they’ve seen. And, judging by the way the children all move in the video, almost expertly, they have witnessed more funerals than most adults do in their lifetime.
Thousands of Palestinian children have been separated from their parents.
The video is, of course, just a small peak at what Palestinian children and what Palestinian families have gone through in the past few years. According to the BBC, a mother in Gaza was reunited with her daughter two years after they were separated because her daughter was an infant that was evacuated from a hospital.
The Displacement camps as seen in the video of the children reenacting the funeral are meant to help house refugees, but they aren’t a solution, and the video is proof of that. There is overcrowding, a lack of resources, and plenty of children who are now growing up knowing only life inside those camps. The children in that Palestinian’s video are proof of that.
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