Child marriage in Gaza is surging, with 20.6% of recent marriages involving girls under 18. Amid hunger, displacement, and a collapsed legal system, girls are losing their childhoods to a “protection” that doesn’t exist.
As part of a U.S.-brokered agreement with Israel and Lebanon, residents of some southern villages are cautiously returning to their homes. What they have found is a shell of their former lives, and a daily menacing presence of the Israeli occupation.