"For the past two years, Gaza's children have been spoken about endlessly. Their deaths and injuries reported. Their suffering described.
"But what has been less visible is something far simpler and incredibly important: their own voices. That is why UNICEF launched "The Gaza We Want" initiative. So today I can share not only what children across the Strip have endured, but also some of what they are asking for.
"The Gaza We Want captures children's perspectives on recovery and reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, addressing a critical gap: what children in Gaza want for their own futures.
"By documenting children's priorities and views, the initiative helps inform child-centered recovery, reconstruction, and policy planning, while reinforcing the importance of meaningful, ongoing child participation in decisions about Gaza's future.
"With our partners, we engaged children aged 5 to 18 across all five governorates of Gaza, including children with disabilities. In total, 1,603 children completed a structured questionnaire, and at least 11,000 children participated through various creative activities, each one designed to be safe and voluntary. No child was asked to re-live violence.
"They were asked to imagine dignity.
"Children were invited to express themselves in the forms they prefer and use naturally: drawings of neighborhoods and parks, models made from rubble and recycled materials, poems, short stories and letters. They also participated through group murals, plays, and simple surveys supported by trained facilitators.
"These drawings and poems are not symbolic. They are data and evidence expressed in crayons, cardboard, and courage. When thousands of children, across age groups and geography, independently draw very similar things - trees, schools, hospitals, clean streets, playgrounds - that is not coincidence. It is a direct appeal to the world. They want their childhoods back.
"Three weeks ago in the Gaza Strip, I met Hala, a 15-year-old girl in a UNICEF Temporary Learning Centre in Deir El Balah. She told me: "missing school affected my learning a lot. Education matters for my future, so I dream of a safe life-having a secure home, my own room, and a good school where I can learn and grow.
"In one sentence, Hala summarized what I heard so many times in Gaza: children want a proper home, they want safety, and they want to be back on school benches. And all decision makers should hear their call and consider it the utmost priority. These are not extraordinary demands. They are the fundamentals of childhood.
"Through the Gaza We Want initiative, children are telling us not only what they lost, but what must come next. And first comes shelter and safety. The children's deepest wish is simply the ability to sleep through the night, to walk to school without fear. Yet since the start of the ceasefire, more than 135 children have been reported killed in the Gaza Strip.
"Second, children want real schools, not tents. Schools with proper walls and roofs. Schools where they feel safe. Schools with desks, toilets, running water, libraries, and playgrounds. Schools not as shelters hosting displaced families, but as places where childhood resumes. For Gaza's children, school represents normality, stability, and possibility.
"Third, children described hospitals that are calm, clean, and safe. Not places that "smell fear.", hospitals were children feel insecure. Again and again, they ask for mental health support alongside physical care. I met too many children whose bodies had healed but whose fear had not.
Children know trauma does not end when the bombing stops.
"Fourth, play is not a luxury. Younger children, especially, are unequivocal: Parks. Beaches. Sports fields. Safe places to play. Play is how children reclaim what war stole from them.
Children did not stop at just sharing their dreams and wishes. They also provided timelines and priorities to the adults leading on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
"They told us:
- First, safety, shelter, learning spaces, and psychological first aid.
- Then, permanent homes, schools, parks, and clinics.
- Later, universities, industries, cultural centres, and places for remembrance.
"This is a recovery roadmap written by children who understand loss - and hope. It is difficult to ignore the clarity of children who have lived through such uncertainty. A recovery that ignores children's voices will fail them - and fail Gaza.
"I also want to share the voice of 14-year-old Mayar. During the Gaza We Want discussions, she told us, "Life has been so difficult, no child should ever have to live through this. The Gaza I want is a beautiful place with hospitals, schools, and safe buildings. I was injured in the war and it affected me a lot. Whenever I hear an airstrike, I get scared. But during the Gaza We Want activity, I felt so much better in my head."
"Listening to children is not optional. It is the minimum standard for a credible recovery. Because the Gaza children describe is not abstract. It is the Gaza they want and have the right to grow up in.
"Thank you."
