分类： world

A new global public opinion survey released by the Pew Research Center reveals a dramatic year-over-year surge in negative attitudes toward Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu across every major region of the world, including Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The poll, which gathered responses from adults across 36 nations between February 8 and May 13 this year, found that clear majorities in 32 out of the 36 surveyed countries hold either somewhat or very unfavorable views of the Israeli state. Only four nations — India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya — recorded majority favorable opinions of Israel.

Aggregated data from the full survey set shows a median 67% of respondents globally hold unfavorable views of Israel, compared to just 25% who report a favorable opinion. The highest levels of disapproval were recorded in Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, the West Bank, and occupied East Jerusalem, with 97% of Turkish respondents and 83% of Japanese respondents holding unfavorable views. Even in majority Anglophone nations long considered sympathetic to Israel, majorities now hold negative views: 60% in the United States, 65% in Canada, 79% in Australia, and 69% in the United Kingdom.

All ten European countries included in the survey also posted majority unfavorable ratings. Sweden and Spain tied for the highest share of negative views at 78% each, while Hungary recorded the most favorable views among European nations — even there, 54% of respondents held an unfavorable opinion of Israel.

Pew researchers and analysts link the sharp spike in negative attitudes to two ongoing conflicts: the long-running Israeli military campaign in Gaza that began in October 2023, and the more recent outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran that began on February 28 of this year, overlapping with the survey’s fieldwork period. The Iran conflict has had far-reaching global economic ripple effects, particularly after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s total oil supply passes. While global public opinion had already hardened against Israel over the Gaza campaign over the past three years, the escalation of hostilities with Iran triggered a significant new surge in negative views, researchers found.

The Gaza conflict, which has been labeled a genocide by hundreds of leading international scholars, major human rights organizations, and dozens of national political leaders, has already killed at least 73,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, according to updated counts from local authorities. United Nations assessments estimate that Israeli bombardment has damaged or destroyed 81% of all residential and infrastructure structures across the Gaza Strip, with total reconstruction and recovery damages estimated at $18.5 billion. While last year’s Pew survey already recorded significant negative fallout from the Gaza campaign, the latest data shows a clear additional uptick in unfavorable views linked to the new conflict with Iran.

Across nearly all surveyed nations, the share of respondents holding unfavorable views rose between 7 and 10 percentage points year-over-year. South Korea recorded the largest single jump at 10 percentage points, while Nigeria saw a 9-point increase in negative views. Germany, Italy, Argentina, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States all recorded increases of between 7 and 9 percentage points.

The survey also identifies a clear ideological divide in attitudes toward Israel, particularly in high-income nations: respondents who identify with left-of-center political positions consistently hold more negative views of Israel than their right-of-center counterparts. This gap is widest in the United States, where 83% of self-identified liberals hold negative views of Israel, compared to just 37% of self-identified conservatives. Survey authors note that this ideological divide is far less consistent across middle-income countries.

Negative attitudes toward Israel are closely mirrored in global opinions of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Only two surveyed countries — the Philippines and Kenya — recorded majority confidence in Netanyahu’s ability to handle global affairs appropriately. In every other nation included in the poll, majorities reported little or no confidence in the Israeli leader. Just as with views of the country itself, the past year has seen a prominent increase in the share of global respondents who have lost confidence in Netanyahu’s leadership.

A joint investigation released Monday by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Oxfam Denmark has thrown into sharp question public claims from Danish shipping conglomerate Maersk that it has refused to transport weapons to Israel since the outbreak of the 2023 Gaza conflict. The investigation, the centerpiece of the grassroots #MaskOffMaersk accountability campaign, alleges that Maersk has overseen the consistent shipment of critical small arms parts and large explosive components to top Israeli weapons manufacturers, in direct contradiction of the firm’s stated policies.

According to the report’s authors, the shipments include small-caliber bullet and rifle parts identical to those used in the 2024 killing of 6-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab, a death that drew international outcry, as well as thousands of other civilian casualties in Gaza. The cargo also includes empty casings for the 900-kilogram MK-84 “bunker buster” bombs that the Israeli military has deployed extensively across Gaza and southern Lebanon.

Investigators cross-referenced shipping records and official bills of lading to trace a steady stream of components from 10 suppliers – nine based in the United States, and one in India – to Israeli defense contractors via Maersk-owned vessels. The largest intended recipient is Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturer, which acquired former state-owned defense producer IMI Systems in 2018. Between October 2023 and July 2025 alone, the report documents more than 1.42 million kilograms of bullet cores and brass cartridge casing cups shipped from three U.S. firms to IMI, parts destined for 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm rifle ammunition, the standard rounds used by Israeli infantry forces.

Additional shipments identified in the report include MK-84 bomb casings from U.S. defense giant General Dynamics, 230-kilogram MPR-series general-purpose bomb parts from Elbit Systems of America, and mortar system components from four additional U.S. suppliers. India’s Sri Kaliswari Metal Powders also used Maersk vessels to ship aluminum powder for explosive manufacturing to Israel, according to the investigation.

“Their actual practice is to completely ignore the policies that they have on the books,” Nadya Tannous, international coordinator for the #MaskOffMaersk campaign, told Middle East Eye in an interview. “Our question to Maersk is: What’s a weapon? You don’t ship weapons, so what is a weapon?”

When reached for comment by Middle East Eye on the report’s allegations, Maersk reiterated its longstanding public position: “From the outset of the conflict, we have maintained a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to Israel. As the conflict escalated, we have further enhanced our screening and acceptance procedures and implemented additional compliance measures. Our compliance processes for military-related cargo are based on EU, US, and Danish laws including the Wassenaar Arrangement, the EU’s common military list and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations as well as UN resolutions.”

Elbit Systems, which generates roughly $2 billion in annual revenue and employs 20,000 people globally, supplies approximately 85 percent of Israel’s drones and land-based military equipment. The Gaza health ministry reports that at least 72,980 people have been killed and 173,170 wounded in Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, and UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese noted in a 2024 report that Israeli defense firms including Elbit have reaped massive profits from the conflict, describing the Gaza war as a “profitable venture” for the sector. Elbit has long been a target of pro-Palestinian activism across Europe and North America over its ties to Israeli military operations.

Unlike many other pro-Palestinian campaigns targeting corporate ties to Israel, the PYM-Oxfam Denmark report does not call for a broad boycott of Israel. Instead, the campaign is explicitly calling for a global consumer and industry boycott of Maersk, and demanding immediate policy change from the shipping giant. Tannous emphasized that the campaign is part of a broader push to hold corporations accountable for facilitating what pro-Palestinian activists and numerous international legal experts have labeled genocide in Gaza.

“We don’t want policy statements, we want material change from the company,” Tannous said. “This campaign is part of a larger nexus of accountability for the Israeli government and the Israeli military. It falls within the corporate accountability campaign for those corporations that facilitated the genocide.”

The report lays out three clear demands for Maersk: immediately halt all shipments of weapons components to Israel, conduct comprehensive independent human rights audits of all global operations, and end all commercial activity that supports Israeli military operations, warning that continued shipments leave the company open to charges of complicity in war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

This is not the first time Maersk has faced public pressure over its links to Israeli military activity. Protests have been held consistently outside the firm’s Copenhagen headquarters for more than two years, with a large demonstration held just last month over Maersk’s role in resupplying Israel amid its multi-front regional conflicts. Multiple countries have already moved to restrict military cargo shipments to Israel, with Spain banning the use of its ports for military-bound cargo to Israel in May 2024.

Tannous noted that Maersk’s near-ubiquitous presence in global port infrastructure makes the company a fair target for collective action by people of conscience around the world. “Maersk is everywhere, right? They’re in every port, for the most part, they use our roads, they use our bridges, they use our public infrastructure,” she said. “What does it mean for us as people of conscience around the world, who majority understand and know that this genocide is ongoing, it’s wrong… to not lose hope in terms of being able to actually affect change for those in power? We demand accountability. There are many methods to do that, and we hope that this report is one of the ways of offering really valuable and precise information.”

Public records show Maersk’s leadership has sent mixed signals on its military cargo policies in recent months. In March 2025, Maersk’s CEO told shareholders that the firm never transports weapons to active conflict zones, but allows other types of military-related cargo – though he declined to clarify the exact distinction between the two categories. The company has also not publicly revised its policy on transporting components for F-35 fighter jets, which the Israeli Air Force has used extensively to bombard residential areas of Gaza. In a July 2025 statement, Maersk only noted that the full F-35 supply chain is controlled by a coalition of partner governments, an argument that echoes previous framing used by other firms tied to weapons exports to Israel.

That same July 2025 statement did include one major concession: Maersk announced it would reassess all commercial ties to firms linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that came after months of sustained pressure from pro-Palestinian activists. The company stated it already adheres to international standards for responsible business practice, and will align any operational changes with guidance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The OHCHR first published a database of firms operating in and profiting from illegal Israeli settlements in 2020, naming more than 100 companies that contribute to human rights abuses against Palestinians.

In the same July statement, Maersch also pushed back against Albanese’s 2024 report on corporate complicity in human rights abuses in Palestine, claiming her report drew on unvalidated third-party data.

Mass public demonstrations against a $1.6 billion luxury coastal resort development led by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have stretched into their fourth consecutive day in Albania, fueled by widespread public anger over untransparent planning and irreversible threats to unique coastal ecosystems.

Thousands of demonstrators have packed the capital city of Tirana all week, raising alarm over the project’s potential to destroy sensitive habitats located at the proposed construction site on Albania’s southern Adriatic coast. The development footprint encompasses the uninhabited Sazan Island, as well as the ecologically rich wetlands and coastal habitats that surround the landmass, with early groundwork already underway in recent weeks. Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, is one of the primary backers of the large-scale tourism project.

In a recent media interview, Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife and former U.S. first daughter, recalled how the pair first encountered Sazan Island during a leisure trip. “We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it,” she explained. “We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.”

Protestors have directed their criticism not only at Affinity Partners but also at Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and his ruling Socialist Party administration, which has positioned itself as a vocal supporter of the development. For Rama, the resort project is a core pillar of his agenda to transform Albania into a premium international tourist destination, boost foreign direct investment, and advance the country’s bid for European Union membership. The prime minister has argued the initiative would inject an estimated $4.6 billion in total investment into Albania’s economy, generate thousands of local jobs, and upgrade critical national infrastructure. Rama won a fourth consecutive term in 2025 on a platform centered on attracting foreign investment and advancing EU accession.

Yet more than 40 domestic environmental organizations have signed an open letter to the government demanding an immediate halt to all construction activities. The site is recognized as one of the most biologically diverse areas along the Adriatic coast, serving as a critical stopover for hundreds of migratory bird species. The coastal waters adjacent to Sazan Island are also one of the last remaining protected refuges for the critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal, while the wetlands host populations of pink flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans among more than 200 recorded bird species. Many protestors have carried cutout images of pink flamingos to rallies to highlight the threat the development poses to these vulnerable animal populations.

Aleksandr Trajce, executive director of the Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA)—the country’s leading conservation organization—told reporters the entire project process has been marked by a complete lack of public accountability. “From start to finish there has been a total lack of transparency,” Trajce said. “We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits, and so now what we are saying is, if they remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking.”

While Rama has stated he is open to meeting with protest representatives to discuss their concerns, he has also ruled out any possibility of canceling the project. “There is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here,” the prime minister confirmed this week.

Developers involved in the initiative have pushed back against criticism, framing the project as environmentally responsible and beneficial to local communities. “Our focus remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation and creating long-term value for local communities. We respect the ongoing public and institutional processes,” said Asher Abehsera, chief executive of Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, which is co-developing the project alongside Affinity Partners.

The Albanian protests are not the first controversy surrounding Kushner’s development projects in the Balkan region. Previously, Kushner planned to build a Trump International Hotel in Belgrade, Serbia, but withdrew from the project earlier this year after a senior Serbian government minister was arrested on charges of abuse of office tied to the development’s approval process. More recently, Kushner drew widespread international criticism for announcing a proposal to develop a “New Gaza” with luxury skyscrapers, coastal tourism hubs, and dedicated commercial districts. Analysts speaking to Middle East Eye described the Gaza plan as a clear example of private actors attempting to profit from conflict and humanitarian disaster in the occupied Palestinian territories.

A Brussels-based non-governmental organization has launched a formal legal push to force Indian authorities to detain an Israeli army reservist accused of committing war crimes in Gaza during his holiday in the country’s northern Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh.

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) submitted an urgent legal complaint on Tuesday to three key Indian bodies: national police, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the country’s immigration bureau. The filing names the suspect as Eitan Gilboa, a member of the Israel Defense Forces’ 271st Combat Engineering Battalion who is currently traveling in India.

In the complaint and a public statement accompanying it, HRF detailed its months-long investigation into Gilboa’s actions during the ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The organization alleges that Gilboa directly took part in and publicly celebrated the systematic leveling of entire residential neighborhoods in Gaza as an act of collective retaliation against Palestinian civilians. These actions, HRF argues, qualify as explicit war crimes under India’s 1960 Geneva Conventions Act.

To back its claims, HRF points to social media content originally shared by Gilboa’s mother, which captures multiple instances of the reservist participating in and commemorating the destruction of civilian infrastructure across southern Gaza, including in the heavily bombed areas of Khan Younis and Rafah.

The legal filing emphasizes that as a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention, India carries a binding international legal obligation to hunt for and prosecute any individual accused of grave breaches of the treaty, regardless of their nationality. This requirement is laid out explicitly in Article 146 of the convention.

HRF has laid out three clear demands for Indian officials: immediately take Gilboa into custody, file a formal First Information Report (FIR) to open a criminal investigation into the allegations, and if arrest is not pursued, order the reservist’s immediate deportation from Indian territory.

“Eitan Gilboa is not a tourist. He is a war criminal currently enjoying the hospitality of India while fleeing the consequences of his crimes,” HRF director Dyab Abou Jahjah, a prominent Lebanese political activist, said in a statement. “India must not allow Indian soil to become a safe haven for those who celebrate the destruction of civilian lives,” he added.

Local Indian activist Shrishti Khanna, speaking to independent outlet Middle East Eye, noted that mass tourism from Israeli veterans to Himachal Pradesh is a decades-long trend, with thousands of former and active Israeli military personnel vacationing in the state since the 1980s. Khanna argued that the current complaint exposes a long-standing pattern of complicity by the Indian government, one that has deepened dramatically under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration. Modi has overseen increasingly close political, military and ideological alignment with Israel, Khanna said, resulting in Israeli occupying forces being treated as harmless holidaymakers rather than potential suspects requiring scrutiny and legal accountability.

Khanna added that she does not expect Indian authorities to actually move forward with an arrest and prosecution, but said that “even if no action is taken, the complaint itself will create a permanent public record of India’s position on this issue.”

This legal action is the latest in a series of efforts by HRF to hold alleged Israeli war criminals accountable across the globe. To date, the organization has filed more than 90 similar criminal complaints in 30 different national jurisdictions, pursuing investigations and litigation against individuals suspected of participating in war crimes against Palestinians.

The complaint comes amid sustained international and domestic pressure on the Indian government over its long-standing military relationship with Israel. New Delhi has continued to approve and ship arms to Israel throughout the current military campaign in Gaza, a policy that has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups and civil society activists who argue the weapons are being used to commit widespread human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians.

Decades of ongoing conflict have reduced Yemen, already one of the Arab world’s poorest nations, to a state of systemic economic collapse, leaving millions of citizens fighting for daily survival. For the country’s low-skilled working-age population, the challenge of securing stable employment to support families has grown even more dire amid a growing wave of transient East African migrants, who have reshaped local low-wage labor markets.

Zahed al-Zabidi, a 30-something Yemeni native originally from conflict-battered Hodeidah governorate, knows this struggle intimately. Seven years ago, he relocated to the southern port city of Aden in search of more reliable work, leaving behind a life of inconsistent day labor that barely put food on the table for his five family members. For more than 15 years, Zabidi has made his living washing dishes and cleaning dining spaces at local restaurants – work that requires no formal education or specialized training, the only kind of employment he can access. Where he once had no trouble securing shifts, opportunity has all but dried up in recent years.

Zabidi blames the growing competition from Ethiopian migrants passing through Yemen on their way to Gulf Cooperation Council nations. “I worked at several restaurants in Aden, but the situation gets worse every day because Ethiopian migrants are taking our jobs, and many restaurants have started hiring them,” he explained. “Ethiopian migrants are ready to work for any amount, so restaurant owners prefer them and fire us.” Zabidi once earned 130,000 Yemeni Riyals, roughly $83, per month – a sum already barely enough to cover his family’s basic needs – before he was replaced by an Ethiopian worker who accepted just 80,000 Yemeni Riyals ($51) for the same role. For Zabidi, that lower wage is impossible to accept: unlike many transient migrants, he has a family of five to support, and the reduced rate cannot cover even the most basic household expenses.

Today, Zabidi remains out of work, traveling from restaurant to restaurant across Aden seeking any open position, with no luck. His family now survives on just bread and tea for most meals, with meat only appearing on their table when a charitable neighbor shared it during the Eid al-Fitr holiday. “It is difficult for a jobless person like me to buy good food for his family. We are only eating to survive,” Zabidi said. Now, he is planning to leave Aden to seek work on farms in Lahj governorate, where relatives already work, even though he has no prior experience in agricultural labor. “I don’t have experience in farming, but I will learn it from my relatives and try my best to work there,” he said.

Official data underscores the scale of Zabidi’s crisis: Yemen’s national youth unemployment rate hit 32.39 percent in 2024, with the hardest impacts falling on low-skilled workers like him who rely on informal, unskilled roles. The United Nations estimates that 22.3 million Yemenis – nearly three-quarters of the country’s total population – require some form of humanitarian assistance or protection support in 2025.

The influx of migrants that has reshaped Yemen’s labor market is part of a long-running regional migration pattern. Yemen’s strategic position on the southwestern edge of the Arabian Peninsula has made it a key transit hub for decades for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, most notably Ethiopia and Somalia, who seek better economic opportunity and safety in Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 110,144 migrants have entered Yemen since the start of 2025, 97 percent of them Ethiopian and 3 percent Somali. More than 90 percent of these new arrivals list Saudi Arabia as their final destination, with only 10 percent planning to settle in Yemen permanently. For most, the country is nothing more than a temporary stopover as they coordinate the next leg of their dangerous journey.

Because migrants only need enough income to cover immediate daily survival costs while they wait to continue north, most are willing to accept extremely low wages that Yemeni heads of household cannot afford to work for. One Ethiopian migrant, who gave his name as Ramadan, explained this dynamic in a brief interview with Middle East Eye. “We plan to reach Saudi Arabia, and while we are here, we need to eat, so we work just like anyone else,” he said. Ramadan, who has picked up basic Arabic during seven months working at an Aden restaurant, added: “I love Yemen and Yemenis, and I don’t want to make anyone unhappy. Yemenis are our brothers, and we share the same suffering.”

Restaurant owners in Aden openly admit that they prefer to hire Ethiopian migrants for low-wage cleaning and dishwashing roles for this reason. Ali, an Aden restaurant owner who spoke to MEE on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the lower labor costs and higher willingness to work long hours make migrants the more attractive option for business owners. “The Ethiopian migrants work hard and they clean the restaurant better than some Yemenis. Moreover, they accept lower wages and don’t complain,” Ali said. “While some Yemeni workers frequently demand higher wages and require a lot of time off, that is not the case with Ethiopians, who work silently and dutifully perform any task requested of them. As a businessman, I prefer to employ Ethiopians for these roles because they work longer hours for less pay.”

Economic analysts note that while the migrant influx exacerbates strain on low-wage Yemeni workers, it is not the root cause of the country’s unemployment crisis – that stems from the 10-year ongoing civil conflict that collapsed Yemen’s national economy. “These migrants work in cleaning, strenuous domestic labour and farming, especially Qat farming, where they accept low wages,” explained economic expert Wafeeq Saleh. “These low wages are not enough for a Yemeni to eke out a decent living for a family, creating unfair competition in the labour market between Yemeni workers and Ethiopians.”

Saleh added that shifting cultural norms have already pushed more Yemenis into these once-shunned low-skilled roles. “There used to be a relative reluctance among Yemenis to take up cleaning jobs because it was culturally viewed as ‘shameful’, but the severe economic crisis has contributed to the fading away of this culture, and Yemenis are now in dire need of any opportunity,” he said.

Even many Yemeni workers who have lost jobs to migrants do not oppose migrants working, but rather call for uniform wage standards that eliminate the unfair advantage low-wage transient migrants give employers. “I am not against Ethiopian migrants working, but I am against the low salaries that encourage restaurant owners to hire them,” Zabidi said. “If we received the same salary for the same working hours, restaurant owners would prefer us.”

When the Global Sumud Flotilla set sail on May 18 to break Israel’s aerial, land and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip, its cargo held far more than life-sustaining basics. Alongside stockpiles of food, clean drinking water, infant formula and critical medical equipment targeted to Gaza’s collapsing healthcare system, the aid mission carried a surprising, gentle addition: portable homemade bubble play kits. These simple kits, crafted from just soap, water, rope and wooden sticks, are the core initiative of Bubbles Not Bombs (BNB), a grassroots humanitarian project dedicated to giving children trapped in war zones and displaced by conflict small, precious moments of respite through mindful bubble play.

For 15 years, BNB operated under the umbrella of Dr Zigs, a Welsh eco-friendly toy company founded by 56-year-old Italy-born Paola Dyboski that frames play as a foundational tool to support children’s emotional wellbeing in crisis settings. Just recently, the initiative spun off to become an independent non-profit organization, expanding its reach to conflict-hit regions across the globe.

Dyboski does not minimize the urgent need to deliver basic necessities to Gaza, where the Palestinian health ministry confirms more than 22,000 Palestinian children have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign launched after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. But she has long argued that play itself is a universal human right that no child, even in the midst of active conflict, should be denied.

Currently, BNB is working to deliver physical bubble kits to children across Gaza and southern Lebanon, where ongoing Israeli military operations have killed more than 3,500 people and displaced nearly one million since March 2024. To bridge gaps in delivery amid restricted access, the organization has already shared simple, open-source digital instructions for making homemade bubbles using locally available materials, so children and caregivers can build their own kits without waiting for external shipments.

Dyboski explains that the soft, fleeting nature of bubbles, with their inherent joy and lightness, offers children living with chronic trauma a tangible tool to process fear and grief, articulate unspoken difficult feelings, regulate their breathing, and stabilize their emotions amid constant chaos.

That impact is visible on the ground in Gaza, where Mohamed Abushbeka has cared for his two young nieces since their father was killed in the first weeks of Israel’s military campaign. Last week, BNB reposted a video Abushbeka shared of his older niece, Batool, blowing bubbles inside an overcrowded displacement camp.

“Bubbles give children these rare stretches of joy, safety, and escape from all the anxiety and brutal reality around them,” Abushbeka told Middle East Eye in an interview. He emphasized that bubble play helps children release overwhelming emotions they often lack the words to name, giving them a brief, tangible sense of freedom. “You see them running, laughing, chasing the bubbles as they float up, then suddenly fall and burst,” he said.

He added that bubble play is uniquely accessible in a context where most resources are scarce: it is low-cost, simple to make, and children will repurpose any available materials, from plastic cups to discarded small tubes, to make their own wands. For caregivers working to preserve any shred of normal childhood for the next generation, protecting these small moments of play is non-negotiable, Abushbeka said. “One day, Palestinian children will laugh without fear, sleep without bombs, and grow up surrounded by peace instead of loss,” he wrote on his Instagram page.

Leigh Evans, a Welsh emergency nurse, paramedic and activist with four medical aid missions to Gaza under his belt, has witnessed first-hand the constant trauma that shapes daily life for Gaza’s children, and the heartbreak of seeing them robbed of the chance to just be kids. “I think children’s need to play and develop as whole human beings should be a major part of what we count as essential aid,” Evans said.

He reflected on how Gazan families work tirelessly to preserve small bits of normalcy even amid widespread destruction, recalling invitations to share meals in partially bombed-out homes, where families leaned on cooking and play to comfort their children when death could come at any moment. Evans has long integrated BNB’s bubble kits into his solidarity work: he joined the Global Sumud Flotilla mission, used bubble play during the 2025 Global March to Gaza, blew bubbles during a peaceful Red Line solidarity rally in West Wales last week, and joined activists in a direct action outside Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems in March, where bubble play was used to disrupt production of munitions deployed in Gaza.

“Bubbles are wonderfully therapeutic,” Evans said. “They offer a small but incredibly powerful form of psychological relief for children in conflict zones, letting them be children in a place where they would otherwise have no space for that.”

Sabine Choucair, a Lebanese performer and co-founder of Clown Me In, an organization that brings arts programming to children in crisis zones, frames bubbles as uniquely magical for young people. “Bubbles are magical, like small globes that reflect everything around children,” she explained. “They bring kids together and give them a low-stakes way to experiment and play.”

Choucair, who has 20 years of experience performing for children in refugee camps and disaster zones across the world, recently partnered with BNB by sharing a video of her original activity “Pop the Fear”, where children are invited to name their fears, visualize placing them inside a bubble, pop the bubble to release the fear, then blow new bubbles to make space for joy and hope.

Speaking of the ongoing crisis in Lebanon, where children are once again displaced, forced out of school, and forced to re-live the trauma of bombardment and home loss, Choucair pushed back against the narrative that mental health and play support are secondary to basic aid. “Imagine re-living the loss of your home, hearing drones and bombs again, and being out of school once more,” she said. “How are we supposed to survive if our mental state is destroyed?”

Mental health experts echo this framing, noting that even when basic survival needs are unmet, psychosocial support for children facing repeated bombardment, displacement and grief is not a secondary priority—it should be a core component of any emergency response. A powerful video from the Gaza-based Sameer Project illustrates this impact, showing a young girl channeling her fear of shelling and famine into popping bubbles, before sharing her wish to be reunited with her mother, who was killed in the conflict.

“It’s a simple but deeply effective way to help children process trauma,” Dyboski said. “Creating moments of play is healing. They can feel a sense of control and make the experience their own.”

Beyond Gaza and Lebanon, BNB has already begun distributing bubble kits to children in Myanmar and at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, home to the world’s largest refugee camp. The organization is working to expand access to Sudan in partnership with local group Let’s Have Hope, though shipment challenges have delayed entry to date. It also plans to send kits to children in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia’s Tigray region, both sites of ongoing protracted conflict.

“We need to make sure children not only survive but are also able to grow into human beings who can live, love and function fully,” Evans said. Citing UNICEF data that an estimated 473 million children worldwide currently live in active conflict zones, Dyboski says the work is far from over. “We’ve got a lot of children to reach.”