From the Ashes of Gaza: How One Adoption Reveals a Crisis of 40,000 Orphans and the Unbreakable Will to Parent 

Amidst the devastation of the Gaza war, a couple’s two-decade struggle with infertility found resolution through the adoption of Jannah, a baby who was the sole survivor of an Israeli attack that killed her entire family. Their story of finding “paradise” in their daughter highlights a much larger humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 40,000 children orphaned by the conflict. This growing number of orphans is compounded by a man-made famine, leaving extended families and aid organizations like UNICEF struggling to provide care as the most basic resources—food, shelter, and safety—are systematically blocked, making Gaza the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.

From the Ashes of Gaza: How One Adoption Reveals a Crisis of 40,000 Orphans and the Unbreakable Will to Parent 

Title: Beyond the Headlines: Finding Paradise in a War Zone – One Couple’s Adoption Story and Gaza’s Growing Orphan Crisis 

Meta Description: Amidst famine and bombardment, Iman and Rami’s 23-year wait for a child ended with a miracle named Jannah. Their story of adoption in Gaza is a beacon of hope, illuminating a devastating humanitarian crisis and the profound human need to nurture, even in the midst of utter destruction. 

In a world of shattered concrete and silenced futures, the sound is a miracle: the gentle whirr-roll-thump of plastic wheels on a makeshift floor. Nine-month-old Jannah, her name meaning “paradise” in Arabic, is propelling herself in a bright green and yellow walker across the room, a tiny vessel of joy navigating the wreckage of her world. Her destination is the outstretched arms of her father, Rami Al-Arouqi. 

This scene of domestic bliss could be from any home, anywhere. But in Gaza, nothing is ordinary. Every smile is hard-won, every moment of peace a temporary truce with a relentless war. Jannah’s journey to this point is a tapestry woven from threads of profound loss, unwavering hope, and the startling ways life finds a path through the cracks of despair. 

For her mother, Iman Farhat, 46, the sight of her daughter is an answer to a prayer two decades in the making. “When I saw Jannah for the first time I cried, because Jannah was very small,” Iman told the ABC, her voice undoubtedly catching at the memory. For 23 years, she and Rami, 47, struggled with the private grief of infertility, a longing that persisted as the world outside their door erupted into very public cataclysm. 

Resigned to their fate but not to hopelessness, the couple did a remarkable thing in late 2024: amidst a humanitarian catastrophe, they registered to become adoptive parents. It was an act of profound optimism. Just one month later, that optimism was met with a heartbreaking opportunity. They were called to a hospital ward to meet a days-old infant known then only as Massa. 

She was a sole survivor—the only one pulled alive from the rubble of an Israeli attack that killed her entire extended family. She was, in the most brutal sense, alone in the world. 

“We knew about the case in the afternoon, and by the evening we had handed in all the documents,” Iman recalls, her decision immediate and absolute. There was no hesitation, only the certainty of a mother who had been waiting a lifetime for this call. This was not just about providing shelter; it was about completing a family. 

The first night home in northern Gaza City was filled with the universal anxieties of new parenthood, magnified by the unique terrors of their environment. “I was scared that she would be inspecting her caregiver, that she would be worried at night, that I will not know how to pacify her,” Iman confessed. But Jannah, as if recognizing her rightful place, settled into her new mother’s arms. “She was very quiet, as if she was in my arms since she was born. We completed each other.” 

The Shadow Crisis: 40,000 Children Alone 

While Jannah’s story is one of miraculous rescue, it casts a long shadow over a staggering and grim statistic. Her personal tragedy is a microcosm of a generational catastrophe unfolding across Gaza. 

UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, last year estimated that approximately 17,000 children in Gaza had been separated from their parents or left without any caregivers. However, that figure, grim as it is, is now considered a significant underestimate. The true scale is better reflected by the Gaza Ministry of Health, which estimates that over 40,000 children have been orphaned by this war. 

And even that devastating number fails to capture the full picture. As Tess Ingram, a UNICEF spokesperson based in Gaza, explains, it doesn’t account for the roughly 1,000 children being cared for by extended relatives—aunts, uncles, grandparents—who have themselves lost everything. 

“That harrowing occurrence is all too common here,” Ingram states, her words heavy with the weight of witness. “A child becomes the sole survivor of their entire extended family. It is shocking that we have more than one case of that, but we do, unfortunately.” 

This “shadow crisis” of orphaned children is now colliding with a man-made famine. The very families who opened their homes and their meager resources to take in nieces, nephews, and grandchildren are now being broken on the wheel of starvation. 

“Many families who perhaps a year ago took in a child who wasn’t their own are now struggling to feed that extra mouth,” Ingram reports. “Increasingly we’re hearing concerning cases of families saying, ‘I can no longer continue to care for this extended relative as much as I would like to, because we just don’t have the coping mechanisms to take in another child’.” 

The support systems are crumbling. UNICEF and local partners work to place orphans in shelters and provide psychosocial support and cash assistance. But these efforts are hamstrung by what aid agencies describe as a systematic blocking of critical aid by Israeli authorities. Tents, food, and medical supplies are stuck at borders while needs inside Gaza skyrocket. 

“The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” Ingram says, “and it’s also one of the most dangerous places to do this sort of humanitarian work.” Her solution is unequivocal: a ceasefire is the only way to stop the killing and allow aid to flow at the scale required. Without it, the number of orphans will only grow, and their chances of survival will only diminish. 

A Father’s Fear, A Future Reimagined 

For Rami Al-Arouqi, the joy of finally becoming a father is inextricably linked to a new, more potent kind of fear. The war is no longer an abstract conflict; it is a direct threat to his daughter’s future. 

“Honestly, I never imagined that I would receive from God this gift or that he would compensate me after 23 years of waiting and patience,” he says, the wonder still fresh in his voice. “It is enough that I hear her voice or feel her touch, it makes me happy.” 

But that joy has rewired his sense of survival. “After Jannah, I began feeling scared, and concerned and that I must go on living for this child, and that this child will live a happy life with parental care, so I began taking care of myself.” 

His perspective on the future has fundamentally shifted. Before, his life was stable, his concerns were his own. Now, every decision is viewed through the lens of Jannah’s well-being. “Today we look at Jannah and say, ‘How will her future look?'” he muses, a question every parent asks, but one that carries a terrifying, unique weight in Gaza. 

He is also acutely, painfully aware that his greatest blessing is born from another family’s unimaginable loss. This awareness is a quiet, respectful grief he carries alongside his love. 

“I often play with that thought and imagine her parents and how this child was their entire life,” he shares. “I am sure she would have been happier because the compassion of the father and mother is different. But at other times, I say maybe God wanted this girl to live a happier life and be with a father and a mother that have been deprived from being parents for more than 20 years.” 

It is a profound and heartbreaking reflection on fate, destiny, and the cruel math of war that creates families by destroying others. 

The Unbreakable Human Impulse to Care 

The story of Iman, Rami, and Jannah is more than a touching human-interest piece. It is a powerful testament to an unbreakable human impulse: the need to nurture, to protect, and to love, even when the world is actively conspiring against it. 

In the face of annihilation, people in Gaza are not just fighting for their own survival; they are fighting for the survival of their community’s children. They are sharing their last scraps of food, sheltering children who are not their own, and, like Iman and Rami, formally opening their hearts to the most vulnerable. 

This impulse is what truly defines a society, even more than its borders or its politics. It is the antithesis of the destruction raining down from above. Where one force seeks to obliterate, the other seeks to rebuild. Where one creates orphans, the other creates new families. 

Jannah, whose name means “paradise,” may never know the family she lost. But she will grow up knowing the boundless love of the family that found her in the darkest of places. Her first steps, her first words, her life itself, will be a living monument to resilience. 

Her story is one of 40,000. And as the war grinds on, that number grows. Each one is a child who will need a safe embrace, a full stomach, and a path to a future that is about more than just survival. They will need their own version of paradise, however small, carved out from the ashes.