Gaza's games give kids hope

Tomorrow a relay of 50 schoolchildren bearing an Olympic-style torch will start from Deir el Balah Elementary Boy's School in central Gaza on the 17km road journey along the Mediterranean coast to the UN compound in Gaza City.

There, they will light a flame to herald the start of the fourth annual summer games.

Throughout the summer 250,000 children will be brought together every day for a fortnight by the UN Refugee agency UNRWA for something that John Ging, its Gaza Operations Director, points out is all-too rare: "a moment of childhood and happiness".

The children will enjoy activities including drama, traditional dances, swimming, sandcastle building, painting and origami.

A few days after a gang of 25 masked and armed men vandalised one of 35 camps being prepared for the games, Ging was visited by three 15-year-old girls from Rimal Preparatory School whose appeal was simple: please don't cancel the games.

Ging was quick to reassure them. Having devised the games four years ago, he told the girls he was not about to abandon them now.

For one of the girls, Amani Sansour, the extremists who carried out the May attack on the beach site south of Gaza City "don't work for our interests. They want us to stay at home."

Her friend, Sawsan Kamel, agreed. "They are a minority," she said. "They don't represent our opinions."

With the world waking up to the impact of the economic blockade of Gaza after the lethal commando raid on a pro-Palestinian flotilla, the summer games may seem like a footnote.

But Ging said after last month's attack that he would not be intimidated into forsaking the "huge responsibility to children that are suffering physically and psychologically in very difficult circumstances to provide them with a high-quality recreation programme over the summer".

And he leaves no doubt as to what he means by the circumstances: "Blockade, occupation, no legitimate economy, a black market economy which is getting stronger and stronger, no prospect of getting a job."

Not to mention undrinkable tap water, malfunctioning sewage and a ban on building materials.

The oversubscribed UN games - Ging says he could accommodate another 100,000 children if he had the funding - have been attacked by some prominent Hamas figures, though not by the de facto government, which Ging says has been "very careful" not to violate UNRWA's integrity.

But he has long argued that extremist trends in Gaza are "born of, but not justified by" circumstances that are "a breeding ground for a mindset which is negative, despairing, destructive, increasingly intolerant and will be more and more violent".

For him the basketball dribbling and kite flying is a symbol of something bigger.

"There's a great future if we can turn the potential in a positive direction ... the kids here are hugely talented and each world record achieved in these difficult circumstances is evidence of that.

- INDEPENDENT

* UNRWA asked The Independent to change the names of the Rimal girls because of the sensitivities of their situation.