Dust clinging to her clothes and exhaustion weighing on her shoulders, 13-year-old Heba Alataar completes the long walk from her displacement camp to a small makeshift tent in central Gaza’s al-Zawaida. What this tattered canvas structure lacks in infrastructure, it makes up for in hope: it is the new temporary home of classes run by the Right to Live Society (RLS), the only organization that long provided specialized support for children like Heba, who has Down syndrome.
Inside the tent, split crudely into two classrooms, Heba sits cross-legged on the bare ground alongside her peers—all children with Down syndrome—working slowly to reclaim skills they lost amid the violence and upheaval of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Heba is one of more than 1,000 children with Down syndrome in the besieged enclave, a group that has suffered disproportionately amid the wider humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded across Gaza since October 2023.
Before the war, RLS was a lifeline for generations of these children and their families. Founded in 1993, the organization operated three purpose-built facilities across Gaza, employing 200 trained staff to deliver a full spectrum of care: early intervention support from birth, specialized education, physical rehabilitation, and mental health counseling for caregivers navigating the unique challenges of raising a child with Down syndrome. For Heba’s father Alaa Alattar, that support transformed his deepest fears into hope.
“When I first learned my daughter had Down syndrome, I cried for days. I had no understanding of her condition, no idea how to care for her, and I was terrified for what her future would hold,” Alattar told Middle East Eye. “All of that fear melted away when we joined RLS. We saw how the children were cared for, how much they could achieve, and we knew Heba would be okay.”
By age 10, Heba had mastered foundational skills: basic comprehension, clear speech, independent personal hygiene, and she was just beginning to learn to read and write. Alattar says he had started to imagine a full, meaningful future for his daughter—until Israeli attacks destroyed every RLS facility across Gaza in the months that followed the outbreak of war. Hundreds of children with disabilities were killed in the bombardment, and many more remain missing. The survivors were displaced, trapped in overcrowded camps with no access to the specialized care they depended on, and the trauma of constant violence erased years of slow, hard-won progress.
Watching Heba lose every skill she had gained was devastating for Alattar. “The war took everything from her. She lost all her skills, her interests, her daily routine. She went right back to square one, as if she had never received any care or education at all,” he said, his voice breaking. “There are no words to describe that heartbreak—years of my daughter’s hard work, the tireless effort of her teachers and our family, all gone in an instant. To see my little girl depressed, sitting alone in a displacement camp, that is a pain no parent should ever know.”
Other families share the same agony. Nabila Abed Rabbo says her 13-year-old daughter Saja, who also has Down syndrome, regressed completely after months of terror and displacement. “Every explosion left her terrified. She would cover her ears, scream, and cling to me, refusing to let me leave her side,” Abed Rabbo said. “Between the constant fear and the terrible conditions in the camp, Saja lost every basic skill she had. She couldn’t even use the toilet anymore, and diapers were almost impossible to get because of the blockade. We had no other options.”
Bahjat Sultan’s 14-year-old daughter Fatima has experienced similar regression. “The war changed her completely. She lost the ability to talk about her feelings, and she started having outbursts of aggressive behavior that we never saw before,” Sultan said. “At night, she can’t sleep. She wakes up screaming from nightmares, terrified all over again.”
Raoufa Salama, RLS’s director of rehabilitation programs, explains that the war’s impact on this vulnerable group has been catastrophic. Beyond the widespread loss of skills in communication, self-care, and social interaction, the organization has recorded a sharp, unexpected rise in new cases of Down syndrome births. Before the war, RLS saw one to two new cases a week; today, that number has jumped to four to five. Salama attributes this increase to widespread exposure to toxic pollution from Israeli explosives and the chronic extreme psychological stress that all pregnant people in Gaza now endure.
Amid all the loss, fragments of hope remain. Fatima Sultan has carried her old RLS uniform with her through every round of displacement, refusing to leave it behind. “She puts it on all the time and asks me to take her back to the center,” her father said. “I just promise her we’ll go soon, and I hold on to the hope that one day we will.”
In July 2024, the surviving RLS team began the slow work of rebuilding their services from scratch. Working out of makeshift tents across three locations in Gaza, the team restarted programming with recreational activities and home visits, eventually expanding back to early intervention, specialized education, and rehabilitation. Their core goals: support families through trauma, help children regain lost skills, and raise awareness of the unique risks disabled children face amid ongoing war and displacement.
For families who had been turned away from every other school because of their children’s condition, the return of RLS brought overwhelming joy. “I tried to enroll Saja in so many different schools, and they all rejected her because of her disability,” Abed Rabbo said. “When we got the invitation from RLS, she was so happy she could finally go to her own school, learn, and make friends.”
Today, RLS serves more than 1,000 children with Down syndrome and autism across its three tent sites. But the obstacles remain nearly insurmountable. The 16-year blockade of Gaza and widespread destruction have left the organization facing crippling shortages of every essential: no proper classroom space, no specialized educational equipment, no consistent access to medical supplies. Teachers improvise, cutting educational materials from cardboard left over from aid packages and scavenging bits of colored paper to make learning tools.
The biggest threat, however, remains ongoing violence. Even after a ceasefire was announced in October 2023, Israel continues to carry out near-daily attacks across Gaza, and maintains a near-total blockade on most aid. Since the ceasefire took effect, Israeli forces have killed at least 1,386 Palestinians, including 300 children. Fourteen-year-old RLS student Ahmed Al-Mabhouh was shot five times by an Israeli soldier while playing near his home east of Al-Bureij refugee camp, leaving him severely wounded and unable to attend classes. Each new round of violence and displacement can erase weeks of progress, sending children back into the trauma that erased their skills in the first place.
Still, against all odds, the children and their families are pushing forward. Slowly but steadily, they are regaining lost skills, rebuilding routines, and reclaiming their joy. For Heba, the center has already transformed her life. “Learning is her whole new routine now. It takes up most of her day, and she’s always so excited to go to class,” Alattar said. “She comes home and tells us all about her friends and what she learned. She’s happier, more focused, and we are so grateful for everything the RLS team has done for us.”
Watching his daughter progress again has restored Alattar’s hope for the future—even as he waits for the war to end for good. “I hope that the fighting stops completely, that our children never have to fear air strikes or being forced to run from their homes again,” he said. “I hope Heba gets a safe, proper place to learn, that she can fully recover, thrive, and one day achieve our shared dream: she wants to be a teacher for other children with Down syndrome.”
