A CHILD’S HAND
They are not Numbers, they are Our Children
At the height of the Israeli bombing of Gaza, families in Gaza wrote the names of their children on the child’s hand, arm, or leg so that their bodies could be identified and buried with their families. This image inspired the Palestinian Children’s Memorial collective to envision the “A Child’s Hand’ installation. Conceived as a memorial for the Palestinian children killed in Gaza, it is also a reminder that the children Gaza are still in danger.
The central image of the installation was thousands of children’s hands rising from the earth. The hands stamped on 6,000 4-inch x 6-inch Palestinian flags. The name of a dead child is written on each hand. The names were from a list of 18,500 children killed in the War in Gaza, published by the Washington Post on July 30, 2025.1 Over 50 people worked to create the flags.
It is clear that these children are only a small portion of the victims of Israeli aggression. The official death toll is over 70,000, of which 80% are women and children. The estimated number of children murdered in Gaza is currently over 20,000, and the number grows daily. But the real number of children who have perished during this genocide is much greater. Recent calculations indicate that more than 479,000 children have perished in Gaza, with the majority dying from malnutrition, lack of medical care, poor sanitation, flooding and freezing temperatures.2
In the spirit of the “Say Their Names” movement, the installation included the reading of the names of the slain Palestinian children. Over 250 children and adults contributed their voices to produce an emotional and memorable experience. As one of the collective members noted,
Hala loved drawing and performing the dabke, a Palestinian folk dance. She was killed alongside her mother, brother and five sisters in a strike on Oct. 16, 2024.1
This project was especially painful for everyone because of reading what seemed like an endless row after row after row of names and ages, which included infants, toddlers, tweens, and teens. The realization hit that these names are less than 4 percent of all of the children murdered by Israel. This brutal fact alone is traumatizing.”
A portion of the readings can be accessed at https://youtu.be/e9b_vmNSSbY
“A Child’s Hand” was installed at the Palestine House of Freedom (PHF)/ Dar Alhurriya in Washington, DC. With the support of the PHF, 3,500 flags were mounted on the walls of the PHF’s courtyard with the names of the martyred children echoing through the sacred space. On December 6, the installation was formally opened as part of the PHF’s year’s end community gathering. An event that combined the memorial of what has been lost with the rededication to what is to come – a Free Palestine.
On December 13, the second phase of “A Child’s Hand” was installed in Normanstone Park, directly across from both the Naval Observatory, the residence of Vice President J.D. Vance, and the British Embassy. In this portion of the project, a wave of 2,500 Palestinian flags with names of the murdered children of Gaza covered the earth, waving and beckoning with each breeze. In the background, their names filled the space. The installation closed on December 20.
The A Child’s Hand installations have closed but the tragedy in Gaza continues and expands in the West Bank. As of January 13, 2026, UNICEF reported that more than 100 children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since a “ceasefire” went into effect in early October 2025. This toll represents an average of roughly one child killed by Israeli forces every day during the ongoing period of reduced, but not stopped, hostilities.3
Food, housing, fuel and medical supplies are still not arriving in Gaza, children are still dying – a 6-month-old baby died on January 19 from hypothermia – and Israel has begun demolishing the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters in East Jerusalem. In the words of UNRAW’s Commissioner General, “This comes in the wake of other steps taken by Israeli authorities to erase the Palestine refugee identity. This must be a wake-up call. What happens today to UNRAW will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territory or anywhere around the world.”4
The goal of the A Child’s Hand installations was to fulfill the vision of Arthur Ashe, “to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.” It is our hope that the installations have helped to bring the reality of the tragedy in Gaza to the viewers and connects them with the Palestinian people. It is also our hope that this small gesture will lead to larger ones that expose the connections between the violence in Gaza and I.C.E. violence
In the U.S., where a 5-year-old child can be ripped of the street5, as well as the genocidal conflicts occurring throughout the world. We live in a connected world, and no one will have peace and justice until we are all free.
For more information about the A Child’s Hand installation and the recording of the names of Gaza’s martyred/murdered children.
Please contact us at: [email protected]
References
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel-gaza-war-children-death-toll/
- https://arena.org.au/politics-of-counting-gazas-dead/
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/1/16/live-israel-continues-deadly-gaza-attacks-as-deal-moves-into-phase-two
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/20/israel-bulldozes-unrwa-headquarters-in-east-jerusalem
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/01/22/minnesota-ice-columbia-heights-school/
