Front Burner - Portraits of childhood in Gaza

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Today, if all goes well, a ceasefire will begin in Gaza.In phase one, Hamas has pledged to return all of the hostages, living and dead. For its part Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, while withdrawing troops to an agreed-upon line in Gaza and maintaining majority control of the territory.Beyond that, the details of Trump’s promise of a “strong, durable, and everlasting peace” are fuzzy, but for hostage families and people in Gaza, it’s a reason to hope. Producer Allie Jaynes brings us a documentary that gives an on-the-ground perspective of what these past two years have been like for Gazans — especially for children. We hear from a 12-year-old with a popular Instagram “cooking show,” a girl living in a crowded displacement camp, and a music teacher giving lessons to kids all over Gaza to help them “escape the weight of war through the freedom of music.”We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.

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Go to Building Better Schools.ca. A message from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, everyone, it's Jamie. I just wanted to take a moment to shout out some of the people who have been writing into the show again. Thanks to Maxine, Louise, Lois, Michael, and others who would like to hear more Canadian stories on the pod and fewer stories on U.S. politics. We hear you. We really appreciate this feedback.

You can reach a show any time at Frontburner at cbc.ca.ca. to tell us about the kinds of stories you want us to cover, and make sure that you are following us on your podcasting app of choice. It is the best way to make sure that you catch every episode. Today, if all goes well, a ceasefire will begin in Gaza. In phase one, Hamas has pledged to return all of the hostages, living and dead. Israel to withdraw its troops to an agreed upon line in Gaza while maintaining majority control of the territory and to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Beyond that,

the details of Trump's promise of a strong, durable, and everlasting peace are fuzzy. But for hostage families and the children and families in Gaza, it's a reason to hope. Today, we've got a documentary for you that gives an on-the-ground perspective of what these past two years have been like for Gazans, especially children. In part one, we'll hear from a little girl who created an Instagram cooking show to take her mind off the war and show the world Ghazin cuisine. In part two, another girl who's living in a displacement camp. And part three, a teacher who has been giving music lessons to displace kids all over Gaza, helping them to, in his words, escape the weight of war through the freedom of music.

they teach us that the music is it's the food of the soul I'm trying my best to make it the food of the body This episode is This episode is about children and adults Trying to find some kind of normalcy amid the most horrific conditions imaginable But it's also about people in those conditions

using joy and beauty, not just as a distraction, but as a means of mental survival. I'll let our producer, Ali Jains, take it from here. Part one, Renaud. I had been wanting to talk to Renaud Atala for about nine months when I finally got a hold of her big sister, Norhan, in August, and managed to set up a call with the two of them. Like a meeting of celebrity. She has lots of thought. Yeah, she has like $1.5 million.

It's so funny the way. That's me and Tamara Al-Gadonfri, a colleague who translated for us. Oh, here we go. Hi, can you guys hear us? Hello? Hello? Hi, can you hear us okay? Yes, we can hear.

Renaud is 12 years old, and she has this very popular Instagram account, which she started in 2024. Most of the posts are a kind of. cooking show where she's making traditional Palestinian dishes with the limited supplies available to her. Shorabit adas on a Dishuwa. Dish is like a Gauzan-style lentil soup.

Or, the crunchy, syrupy dessert kanafa. It's sadden that this is a oska, but I'm doing but I love and chagaf. Or okra stew. It didn't do, we've done we've done it, and gasholed it.

What I find so gripping about her account, and I guess what all these other people do too, is that you're seeing a kid trying her hardest to just be a kid, laughing and smiling and doing something she finds fun, amid bombings, blockade, terrible hunger. I love cooking, and my dream was to become a chef and open a big restaurant where people can enjoy the food. I prepare. But during the war, schools have been closed. So I started cooking as a way to distract myself and reduce the sadness and stress I felt. Renaud's family is in Dar al-Bala, in central Gaza. They've been lucky, in the sense that their home is still standing and that they're still in it. But Norhan and Renad explained that the three-bedroom house was now crammed with 23 people,

extended family members who had had to flee there from other parts of Gaza. Before the war, when I looked outside my window, I could see palm trees everywhere. You could see big and nice houses almost everywhere in Daryl Bala. It was very, very beautiful. Now those nice and big houses are bombed in their attention instead. The first video Renaud ever posted was one that Norhan filmed in March 24. It was an unboxing video, the kind you might see kids do on YouTube with toys or clothes, except that this box was filled with aid from the UAE.

You don't have to see how much she is how joyful she is, at the side of these bags of sugar and cans of meat. Even as you can hear the drones in the background. Point, Nourhan explained, the price of sugar in Gaza had shot up from about a dollar U.S. per bag to 30. Now, she said, it's over 100. Renaud started posting cooking reels soon after that. I really love the food from Gaza and Palestine. I cook with love so the world can see our food. One of her favorite things she's cooked in the videos is the iconic Palestinian dish, McLuba.

I feel macluba represents our homeland. It is vegetables, meat, chicken, rice. It represents the Palestinian generosity. And whatever they add to it, it turns out to be delicious. Rennad cooked hers without any meats, because there wasn't any. This is the orphan macluba. We call it the orphan because it doesn't have any chicken. Let's do it.

As time has gone on, as Israel has imposed either total or partial blockades, she's had to get more creative in our cooking. Filling a canister with cotton balls, then soaking them in alcohol and lighting them on fire, instead of using cooking fuel. Today I'm not going to make gas in labnaet. Today it's the famine type of labnais. The thick white divlodna is typically made from strained yogurt and salt.

Renada improvised, using water, powdered milk, vegetable oil and salt. And then she got that signature thickness by adding citric acid. The videos aren't all about cooking, though, and she's not always laughing. There are posts about the bombs overhead, about her hunger, about her fears of being displaced, when there's nowhere safe to go. At any second, a displacement could happen, or shelling, so that stops me from making videos. Last August, she posted about the painful rash on her face and neck, an issue that had become increasingly common in children in Gaza by last summer,

as soap and other hygiene products ran out, and malnutrition increased. It feels as though someone is putting fire onto you. It really does burn. She also posted about her relatives stuck in the north. in Jabalia, during Israel's siege of northern Gaza last fall. Some people die from servition, others from the massacres. Either way, you end up dead in this genocide. When we spoke in August, she hadn't posted a cooking reel in close to three months.

Her family was down to eating one meal a day. And they also couldn't afford to use up fuel to cook one dish for an Instagram reel. Besides, she said, given how many Gazan kids are in full famine, going days at a time, time without food. It just didn't feel right to post about cooking. You have often written on your Instagram page about trying to stay positive. And I'm wondering if that's something that you're still able to do right now and sort of how you try to get through your days mentally. Of course, hope never leaves Gaza.

But of course, there's sadness. despair. We are tired. We are exhausted. One can't even eat. But thank God we have hope. God willing, this war will end and we will return to our everyday lives, eating whatever we want and going to school. Do you still dream of being a chef and opening a restaurant? It is impossible to kill this dream. I am waiting until I'm old enough to open a big restaurant and serve everyone so that they can try Palestinian food. A week after our interview, Nourhan, Renad and her twin brother evacuated to the Netherlands, where Nourhan had gotten a scholarship.

Renad posted about it on Instagram a few days later, posing in front of some graffiti that said Free Gaza. She explained that while they had been able to get out, they had had to leave the rest of the family, including her mother and four other brothers, behind. We escaped, hoping to find safe. safety, school, and food, she wrote. But still, I don't feel like I survived. There's no such thing as surviving alone. It's either all of us or none.

Of course, as Renaud was saying, being able to get out at all. is rare, as is staying in your home. This is Anaya Fari-Walid Al-Bu-Wakar, with her family friend who's translating for us. He's encouraging her to try to practice her English. Okay, excellent. Inaya is also 12, almost 13, she made sure to note, and she's currently living in Almawazi,

an enormous tent city on a tiny strip of sand near the water in southern Gaza. In June, the UN said that 425,000 people were sheltering in Almohazi. That's close to 48,000 per square kilometre. That number is likely much higher now, as people fleeing the IDF's invasion of Gaza City in the north seek shelter there. First, in the Israeli military, has launched a massive ground incursion into Gaza City, this after weeks of intense bombardments across the territory's largest urban center. Every day, building by building,

Israel makes more of Gaza city uninhabitable. They came to Almwasi thinking that they're going to be space, they're going to find water, hygiene, they're going to find everything that Israeli forces advertised to when they ask Palestinians to evacuate to Al Mawasi. But they came here to the unknown, not finding anything and not even finding any space. Israel designated Almazi a humanitarian zone,

But the UN and other rights groups have documented hundreds of attacks on tents there by the Israeli military. Life here is hard. There is sand and a lot of insects, and it's burning hot. It's very different from our lives back home. Inaya is originally from the nearby city of Hun Yunus, in an area that she has fond memories of. It was such a beautiful neighborhood. The apartment buildings were all lit up at night, and there was a grassy area where we would play. I used to go with my friends, and we would jump rope together and have fun.

My dream was to become a doctor. They first had to leave Hun Yunus in January, 24. We were sitting in our home, and suddenly, tanks started coming close to our area, and missiles were firing. We were very scared, and so we fled, in the middle of the night. From Han Yunus, they went to Rafa, then a few months later, to Almwazi, then back to Han Yunus, but not to their house, to a camp. This August, they left for Al-Mawazi again, fleeing on foot, she says, amid IDF strikes and gunfire.

It was a situation of extreme fear. We were crying and so scared. They were shooting at us. We ran and ran until we reached the camp, and we arrived at around 3.30 in the morning. This past spring, when they were still in the camp in Han Yunus, Anaya's father was killed. He was at work at the time. He was near a tent that was bombed

and the shrapnel killed him. The ambulance took him to the hospital where he needed a blood transfusion but a piece of shrapnel had pierced his heart and it killed him. At first they didn't tell us he died. I found out he had been killed from people talking about it on the street.

Then we buried his body and said our goodbyes. He was a very kind and loving father. He used to take us out to play. He never yelled at us. He loved us so much and gave us everything we asked for. If I kept talking about him until tomorrow, I still wouldn't be able to say everything about how good and kind he was.

Anaya says she still dreams of being a doctor. But given that she hasn't been in school for two years, she doesn't know if she'll be able to get her grades back up enough to do it. I asked her how she tries to find the strength mentally now to get through all of this. The family itself makes us forget the conditions we're living in. In my family, we try to distract ourselves with cooking, visiting relatives, or playing with friends. It's not that we forget the things that happened, because this is unforgettable. But being with friends and family helps us to get through this time.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, the music teacher are giving classes to kids from all over Gaza to distract them from the bombs and the hunger. But instead of helping our kids, the Ford government is playing politics, taking over school boards and silencing local voices. It shouldn't be this way. Tell the Ford government to get serious about tackling overcrowded classrooms, because smaller classes would make a big difference for our kids. Go to Building Better Schools.com. A message from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. Hey, I'm Gavin Crawford from the podcast, Because News.

It's a show where I ask comedians questions about the news of the week, and they try. their best not to answer correctly. This week, we play a game called Two Truths and AI. Delve into some forgotten baseball slang as we cheer for the Jays, and I'll ask the panel, which entertainer is refusing to perform in America this year.

Join me, Martha Chavez, Alice Moran, and Miguel Rivas, three comedians who are not worried about getting yoinked off the air because they made fun of the president. Get Because News, wherever you get your podcast, which I'm presuming is here. Part three, Ahmed. How are you? I miss you a lot, really.

Today there's a lot of drones. I'm going to sing your song today. The first video that I saw of the music teacher Ahmed Abu Amshah was this one, outside a tent where he was sitting with some of his music students. He got them to harmonize with the Israeli drones in the background. When I reached out of WhatsApp video to set something up to be easy. It was clear that wasn't going to be easy. He was in the midst of trying to find somewhere to relocate yet again with his wife and five kids. They were in Gaza City, where the IDF had begun a massive assault, the initial stages of its plan to take over and occupy the city.

Israel has launched its offensive to take control of Gaza City despite international condemnation. The IDF says the city's a Hamas stronghold and says its ending pauses that allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza's biggest population center. Ahmed was clearly exhausted on our call and scared. And you could hear gunfire in the background. I'm looking for somewhere to go, he told me. But there is nowhere safe to go. So it wasn't until about 10 days later

when he had finally found a camp to relocate to in central Gaza that we ended up doing an interview through a series of lengthy voice notes. Before this war, I'm always busy. I'm always working. I'm always having a lot of stories. Friday and Saturday, I just sit at home and take my family to a wonderful places and have vacation there. Yeah, we was living a really good life.

Ahmed and his family used to live in Bait Hanoon in the very northern tip of Gaza. He was working as a music teacher at the storied Edward Saeed National Conservatory of Music, as well as at the American International School in Gaza. He was also working as a composer, a sound engineer, and a player in a Palestinian TV band. I have a lot of things to do before this war. Being from the far north, Ahmed had a lot of things to do before this war. his relatives, including his parents and brothers, as well as his wife and kids, were some of the first Gazans to get evacuation orders from the Israeli military in the hours following the

Hamas-led attacks inside Israel on October 7th. At 3 o'clock of the morning, we have a call that the Israeli sent, that's leaving immediately at 3 o'clock. You have only 5 minutes. We leave without Shoes running through the dark, darkness. And after five minutes, they blow all the block. And we run away to Jabalia area. In Jabalia, they sought refuge in a school. And the next day, in the middle of the day, they strike the school. From there, they tried to seek shelter in various spots in Gaza City.

but it was being heavily bombed. Around that same time, the Edward Said Conservatory in Gaza City was also struck and badly damaged. Ahmed and his family fled south to Han Yunus, then later from Han Yunus down to Raffa. By this point, he was heartbroken and in pure survival mode.

But it was in that camp in Rafa, about five or six months into the war, that he first played music again. My friend bring a guitar and I hold it since the beginning of the world. I'm not thinking about music. I'm just was thinking about how to protect my family and how to run away from the hell.

So I hold the guitar and play and suddenly all the kids gathering around me and they are singing with me. So I wake up suddenly, oh my God, I forget that I'm in a war. The second day the kids coming in the morning asked me for playing and singing together and I bring my guitar and sing with them

the third day, the fourth day. Then I decided to make activity for the kids in the shelter and it was very nice. Soon, he and his family had to flee again. This time for Almawazi. The same massive camp where 12-year-old Anaya is sheltering now. Ahmed started teaching kids there too. And from there, he and some of the kids formed Gaza Bird Singing. They're a band, but also a project, where he and his colleagues from

Edward Saeed are giving lessons to children from the displacement camps. We work with a lot of kids. You know, we have 200 kids, girls and boys, teaching them music. The families come to my tent. They told me our kids is better. They forget the war. They are singing now. They have something to do and interested in music. I'm trying my best to use music therapy to choose the warmth notes. And I changed my guitar tuning to 432. 432, it's an old tuning of the music instruments. It's give you some warmth and make you comfort.

A lot of kids come to the music activity and they are not communicating a lot. They have a psychological problems. like trauma their neighbors are dead in front their eyes strikes was near some kids are they're flying in the air from the explosions and i i know i know some kids they lose their hands and and you know i'm trying my best you know when i see the smile upon the faces of the kids Like, I have the world. That's made me strong. That's made me continuing.

My work, a girl called Nama, she has some piece of metal from the explosion inside her hand. And she's still coming. They believe what they are doing. No one can stop them. In January, after the sea spire between Israel and Hamas, Ahmed and his family went back home to Bait Hanute. The two houses belonging to his extended family,

as well as his home recording studio, had been badly damaged by bombardments. But he found one good room left in one of the houses. I put my family in the room and try to clean the place. for the activity, and the kids coming from Betlahia, Jabalia, the villages beside Bithan, we spent there two months, I think. After that, they asked us to leave Bithan because the ceasefire is destroying, and we go back

to the middle of Gaza City. That's where he was for six months. Continuing on with Gaza birds singing, teaching kids outside his family's tents. Good morning, good morning, my friends, you know, I just record this video to tell you, we are okay, everything is okay. Last night was a lot of bombing and a lot of drones, so... Often, the sound of drones is too loud to play over. Someday when we have activities it was very near and it has annoying sound and the kids can't play and you can feel they are exhausted from the sound and they stopped music I told them don't stop play let's change it to something beautiful they told me how it's impossible I told them let it like a background of music holding one note

and we got to sing together shale Shailia Jammali Jammali Shail so each time the drone coming they are singing Shail yeah and smiling so we change the bad sound the war sound to something beautiful like music And each time in the streets, in the tents, when it's coming, all the kids singing Shail, Shail, yeah, Jammar, Shail, Y'amani, Shail. In March and April of this year, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza with no food. coming in. Since then, it has led a trickle of aid in through the borders, as well as airdrops. But experts say it's nowhere near enough to fend off mass starvation. The

least aid has reached the north, including Gaza City. In late August, the world's leading authority on hunger, the integrated food security phase classification, confirmed that Gaza City was gripped by catastrophic famine. It's only the fourth time the IPC has declared a famine since its founding in 2004. The IPC noted, quote, as this famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed. Sometimes you can feel the hunger inside their eyes. I don't know what to do. They teach us that the music is the food of the soul.

I'm trying my best to make it the food of the body. And they coming are starving and tired. After five minutes of singing, they forget this feeling and you can see their eyes are glowing, like they are happy, they have a smile, you can feel the positive energy in the place, and all the families around the music activity, you know, it's like tense between each other. They are singing with us and, you know, when we are gathering and singing, we are healing their selves and trying to escape from this madness on this war. The camp where his family has yet again set up is on another beach in central Gaza. A few days after arriving, Ahmed posted a short video of himself and a group of boys, smiling and laughing as they pulled a white parachute in the strong wind by the water.

Hello, everyone. Today we have a parachute. I'm going to put it above my tents and four of the kids. In the caption, he explained that the parachute was going to be set up to shade the kids from the sun during music lessons. But the first, they had taken it to the beach to play with it. It was pulling us, and the children's laughter filled the air, he wrote. He continued, even though preparing the new space took so much time and effort, we do our best to create a place of joy and hope for the children. That is all for today. Special thanks to our translator, CBC News Network, Associate.

producer, Tamara Alga Danfari. And thank you to our two voice actors, Riley Berger, who voiced Renaud and Ila Bleymeyer, who voiced Anaya. Today's episode was produced by the wonderful Ali Janes, who is now on maternity leave. We will miss you, Ali. Good luck with everything. Front burner was also produced this week by Joythe Schengupta, Matthew Amha, Matt Mews, Laura Donnelly, Simi Bassy, Sam McNulty, and Mackenzie Cameron. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Music is by Joseph Shabison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chow. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe Locos. Thanks so much for listening to Front Burner. And we'll talk to you next week. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.