By NNN-Xinhua,
Gaza : After returning from school, 14-year-old Mahmoud Awad took a quick meal and rushed out with a bag full of cigarette boxes to peddle on the streets of Gaza city, as usual.
Children’s Day is something Mahmoud never heard of before, let alone any gift from his families on this occasion.
Instead, Mahmoud’s mind is now preoccupied by a new “ordeal” as Hamas police forces, which took over Gaza last June, started to crack down on children selling cigarettes in the streets.
Over the past ten days, Mahmoud has been taken to Hamas-run police station three times.
“On one occasion, I spent three days in prison and missed my sister’s wedding party,” said the teenager.
“There could be a day for the children, but it is not here in Gaza,” Mahmoud says, while extending his “wishes and hopes for those who celebrate this day.”
“I earn 20 Shekels (6 U.S. dollars) a day. Thanks god,” the boy said describing his life, “every Wednesday, my father takes me to Khan Younis city (in southern Gaza Strip) to buy cigarettes from a wholesale dealer.”
Dozens of Gaza children are seen during the day selling cigarettes, biscuits and candies. Most of them say they are so poor that they have to work to help their unemployed parents.
Mahmoud says he is an excellent student at school and never skip his lessons, but he has to work to get food without begging and to help support his seven brothers.
However, he is determined to go on with study– “to become a lawyer,” as he always wishes. “A lawyer will be able to deal with anyone and will defend the violated rights.”
Mahmoud’s father used to work as a construction worker in Israel but, like tens of thousands of Palestinians, lost his job when Israel closed its borders with Gaza at the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, in 2000.
Under the hard circumstances the Gaza Strip is witnessing due to the Israeli blockade and the current economic situation, most children here are deprived of a childhood enjoyed by their peers elsewhere.
“Look at the children in Israel. They have parks and they can travel to interesting places if they want to, but we are imprisoned here,” said Osama Ahmed, a 12-year-old child of Gaza.
The one-year-old economic embargo Israel imposes on the Gaza Strip and the closure of border crossings also contributed to increasing numbers of child labor as fathers lose their jobs.
Their woes are exacerbated by factional conflicts in the Palestinian territories, and according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the number of Palestinians killed and injured in internal violence in 2007 exceeded the number of those killed in the conflict with Israel.
A total of 444 Palestinians, including 30 children, were killed as a result of internal fighting between January and October 2007.
Children, along with their parents, are suffering from the destitution and insecurity resulted from the closure and conflicts.
According to a recent report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), children between 7 to 17 form 28.8 percent of the Palestinian population, and around 5 percent of them sometimes work with nothing in return.
“There is no future here in Gaza. I wish I can leave one day and live in another country and enjoy life with other children,” said Ahmed.
Ahmed the boy is not the only one thinking about leaving their homeland, where unemployment rate is rocket high and everything from fuel to electricity to daily necessities is in short supply after a year-long closure.
Unofficial statistics showed that at least 45 percent of Gazans are thinking about leaving the impoverished region and living somewhere else.