War’s Youngest Victims: Childhoods Forever Changed
In Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and Gaza, children’s lives have been forever changed by exposure to violence
June 4 marked the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression, a day dedicated by the UN to raising awareness of children suffering from violence. This year’s commemoration is particularly somber, as children continue to suffer from the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
The Media Line spoke to families from Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, and Russia, as well as a representative from the International Committee of the Red Cross, to learn about how children around the world are coping with war.
Svetlana from Ukraine has two children. Her son, Matvey, is 4 years old, and her daughter, 10-month-old Daniela, was born during the Russia-Ukraine war. When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Matvey was only 2 years old.
“On Feb. 24, we woke up at 4 a.m. to loud explosions,” Svetlana told The Media Line. “I went to check on my father, entered his room, and he was standing by the window, saying, ‘It’s started, the Russians have attacked.’ We left everything behind and, together with my parents, headed outside of Kyiv.”
Matvey wanted to bring all his toys with him, but Svetlana only allowed him to take two. “He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t take a whole suitcase. He didn’t understand what war was back then,” she said.
Matvey sleeps on the floor between parents during the first days of the war. (Courtesy)
While the family was traveling on a highway near Chernihiv, the Russians attacked from all sides. “It was very loud and scary, but we had nowhere to go, so we stayed at the family house near Kyiv,” she recalled. “Eleven of us lived there for four days, and we all, including kids, slept in one room on the floor because it had the thickest walls.”
Svetlana heard from her friends in other cities that people were being killed by Russian shells. Fearing for Matvey’s life, the family decided to flee for western Ukraine by train.
“Even now, when I find myself at the station, I cry,” Svetlana said. “There were lots of people with small children. Everyone was scared. Tickets weren’t being sold. Trains just arrived and took people in different directions.”
By the time the family reached the western Ukrainian oblast of Zakarpattia, Matvey had developed a rotavirus infection. Svetlana recalled seeking protection from incoming shells as her son vomited and battled a 102.2-degree fever.
“I would wake Matvey up, and he would cry loudly and not understand what was happening. I had tears in my eyes, but I carried him to the basement, and he would fall asleep in my arms,” she said.
The basement where the family hid with two-year-old Matvey usually had around 70 people in it during sirens.
The family agreed that Svetlana and Matvey would fly to Portugal while Svetlana’s husband stayed in Ukraine. Matvey had a hard time adjusting to his new life. Svetlana recalled him recoiling from noises of all sorts and asking, “Why isn’t there a siren here, but there is at home?”
Especially difficult was the distance from his father. Matvey called any man he encountered “dad” and constantly asked Svetlana why his father wasn’t there. Eventually, the longing became unbearable.
Esther, Eve, and Stephanie Transki. (Courtesy)
“We couldn’t live without Dad, without my husband. On July 1, we returned to Kyiv,” Svetlana said.
That November, Svetlana and her husband found out that they were expecting a baby.
“When your youngest child is 3 years old, you’re pregnant, and there are endless explosions outside—it’s scary,” she recounted. “I remember when Matvey and I were at the playground, and heavy shelling started. I, pregnant, grabbed my 3-year-old; he was already heavy and ran to the shelter, thinking only about not losing the pregnancy.”
While in the maternity hospital, Svetlana was preoccupied by the war. “During my first pregnancy, I thought about the baby, our future, and dreamed, but this time, I only thought about what to do if we were shelled,” she said. “What would I do with a newborn baby?”
Svetlana described her daughter Daniela as a cheerful girl. “It’s amazing, such a happy child in such a tough time,” she said.
The family tries to make Matvey and Daniela’s childhood bright and positive, but the children are forced to learn about war.
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“What an injustice! It hurts me that he even knows what war is,” Svetlana said of Matvey. When he asks her, as he often does, why Russia attacked Ukraine, she tries to use a child-friendly explanation, comparing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to a child who tries to take another’s toys. “But Matvey doesn’t understand,” she said. “He looks at me and keeps asking why, and I just can’t explain it.”
Across the border in Belgorod, Russia, Anna and her children also suffered from violence in the Russia-initiated war. Anna and her family recently decided to leave the country.
“We have relatives in Ukraine, and this war is a great pain for us,” Anna told The Media Line. “It’s very important for us to support Ukrainians. When the war started, it felt like something terrible and completely unjust was happening. We would sit and watch as rockets flew into Ukraine, feeling helpless.”
Since the outbreak of the war, the family has tried to help Ukrainians. Anna’s children now study with a tutor living in Ukraine, and they manage to send payments through foreign accounts.
“The stress for the kids is terrible,” Anna said, speaking on behalf of friends still in Russia who are unable to speak out against the effects of the war. “For example, my daughter’s 11-year-old classmate has turned gray and gained weight because of it.”
From the very beginning of the war with Ukraine, Anna’s children constantly heard bombings and gunfire and saw drones. “Now we live in a place without war, but when the children hear sounds that resemble drones, they start hiding, walking sideways, or squatting down,” she said.
Anna notices other manifestations of fear in her children as well, such as their concern when the lights in their house go out.
Her children also ask about news in Belgorod and continue to worry about what is happening there. “They see that the shelling continues and are scared by it,” she said. “Recently, a zoo was damaged, and animals died, which deeply affected them.”
One of the most challenging aspects for the children has been breaking ties with their past lives, Anna said. “They constantly ask, ‘Mommy, will we never see our coach again? What about our friends?’” she recounted. “My children love their grandmother very much, but she is very old, and we all understand that they will most likely not see her again.”
On the other side of the world, Anna from northern Israel also grapples to protect her children from the consequences of war. After Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, Anna immediately understood that violence would also break out in Kiryat Shmona, the northern city where she lives with her 6-year-old son Gavriel and 4-year-old daughter Maya.
For two weeks, the family couldn’t leave the city. “We constantly heard explosions and were afraid to go outside,” she told The Media Line. “At some point, the sirens became incessant. One day, we were ordered to close all windows, turn off the lights, and hide because a terrorist drone was flying over the city.”
She tried to distract her children to help them deal with the situation. “But they were still incredibly frightened. The sirens kept increasing, and we could hear gunfire,” she said.
The family left Kiryat Shmona for central Israel, and Anna’s husband left to serve in the army. But even in central Israel, the children faced frequent shelling.
“The children constantly flinched, were capricious, and hid from any sounds,” Anna said. “I saw that they were always in fear. Everything changed for them, and they almost stopped seeing their father.”
Anna from Kiryat Shmona with her husband and kids. (Courtesy)
Anna’s 6-year-old son often asks her questions about the war. “He constantly asks why people want to kill us,” she recounted. “I try to answer in a child-friendly way, but honestly. He lives in such a country that it’s important to be ready for this reality. He is Israeli. I have to explain that our neighbors do not want our state to exist.”
“It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish, Arab, or Druze. If you are Israeli, you must be prepared for the fact that the countries around you do not want Israel to exist,” she said. She hopes that her children will not have to live under the current Israeli government and believes that serving in the Israeli military is their eventual duty.
Anna said that living through war has made her son and daughter’s childhood unstable, which she expects to affect their lives in the future.
“They are exposed to a very heavy flow of information,” she said. “They discuss terrorists with other children at school. Gavriel comes and tells me things about terrorists, about who should kill whom. … I try to distract him from this, but it is impossible to completely do that.”
Kate, from the southern Israeli city of Sderot, is facing similar challenges. When Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, she and her three daughters, ages 5, 8, and 11, were unable to leave the shelter due to ongoing shelling.
“There was no news, we didn’t understand what was happening,” Kate told The Media Line. “We just heard one siren after another and gunshots. Sometimes, we managed to peek out the window and saw terrorists.”
After 10 days of sheltering at home, the family left for a hotel in central Israel. Even after receiving psychological support, the children refused to leave the hotel. “The center of the country was also being shelled,” she said. “It took two weeks for the children to agree to go out.”
She notices symptoms of anxiety in her three daughters, including fear of the dark. The youngest has started to wet the bed.
Despite the ongoing shelling, the family has now returned to Sderot in order to allow the children to attend school. The children still suffer from anxiety and are afraid of loud noises, and the oldest daughter has said she does not want to live in Israel when she grows up.
“I wouldn’t want my children to live like this, but for now, it is what it is,” Kate said.
Families in the Gaza Strip have also been deeply affected by the conflict. The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) shared with The Media Line the Abu Amro family’s story of desperately trying to survive.
Bashir Alaa’s 2-year-old son suffers from a congenital kidney deformity. After the war broke out, the family traveled from east of Gaza City to the Suwarha area, west of the central governorate, where a camp for displaced people had been set up.
According to the PCRF, the camp lacked adequate medical facilities to treat his painful and complex condition.
His father said that he has struggled to find enough food and water for his family. “We thank God for everything, but sometimes the aid comes, and sometimes it doesn’t. We need consistent support to survive,” he said.
The PCRF told The Media Line that camps for displaced people usually lack health and education facilities, contributing to poor hygiene and isolation in children.
“Despite everything we’re going through, we endure and persevere,” Alaa said. “Hope is what keeps us going. We hope that one day we’ll return to our homes and live in peace.”
Sarah Davies, the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, told The Media Line that the Red Cross is working to help children in Gaza.
“We do provide mental health services to families to try and support kids,” she said.
“Some of the kids in Gaza have been living at a hospital, in a tent by the streets for more than six months,” she explained. “There are constant explosions and nightmare scenes that they’re being exposed to regularly, so we ran an activity that was like a drawing festival so the kids could have a bit of creativity.”
Approximately 30 children were taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, almost all of whom were returned in November’s hostage exchange. The youngest child taken by Hamas was Kfir Bibas, who was 10 months old when he was taken hostage. Kfir is still being held in Gaza along with his mother and 4-year-old brother.
Davies emphasized that the Red Cross is neutral and does not take sides in any conflicts.
“We are working constantly to have a direct dialogue about this,” she said. “At this time, we don’t have access to the hostages.”
“This is something that needs to be agreed upon on a political level as well,” she continued. “We don’t know where the hostages are. Even if we did, we can’t go and kick down doors. We don’t have weapons, and there’s an active conflict going on.”
