Music Gives Gaza Children Respite From Horrors of War 

Ruaa Hassouna plays music for Palestinian children on her oud (Ud, or oriental lute) as Palestinian children participate in an activity aimed to support their mental health, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 18, 2023. (AFP)
Ruaa Hassouna plays music for Palestinian children on her oud (Ud, or oriental lute) as Palestinian children participate in an activity aimed to support their mental health, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 18, 2023. (AFP)
TT
20

Music Gives Gaza Children Respite From Horrors of War 

Ruaa Hassouna plays music for Palestinian children on her oud (Ud, or oriental lute) as Palestinian children participate in an activity aimed to support their mental health, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 18, 2023. (AFP)
Ruaa Hassouna plays music for Palestinian children on her oud (Ud, or oriental lute) as Palestinian children participate in an activity aimed to support their mental health, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 18, 2023. (AFP)

It takes a while but slowly the children gathered around volunteer entertainer Ruaa Hassouna in a Gaza camp start clapping along as her music offers some respite from the horrors around them.

Smiles light up the faces of the children, huddled amid the tents outside the south Gaza town of Rafah which shelter hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by more than two months of relentless Israeli bombardment.

Hassouna is part of a troupe of more than a dozen volunteer entertainers who travel from camp to makeshift camp on a mission to provide children with some escape, however brief, from the death and destruction they have witnessed.

The 23-year-old plays the oud, a lute-like stringed instrument popular across the Middle East. Other volunteers entertain the children with slapstick, acrobatics, story-telling or dance.

"We use whatever means we can to remove the children from the war," says the 23-year-old. "The aim of getting them to sing is to alleviate their stress."

Hassouna says that when her young audiences hear her oud, they "no longer hear the hum of the drones" deployed by the Israeli army, instead immersing themselves in the music.

The United Nations says children make up half of the 1.9 million Palestinians displaced since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war.

They have been forced to abandon their daily routines and live under Israeli bombardment since Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel killed about 1,140 people, according to an AFP count based on Israel figures.

'I want my childhood back'

Hassouna's troupe travels to a different camp every day, putting on a three-hour performance in each.

"It's an important project because, from what we've observed, the psychological state of the children is very bad," said returning expatriate Awni Farhat, the person behind the initiative.

This space "allows them to unburden themselves of the psychological problems created by this war", said Farhat, who lives in the Netherlands but returned to Gaza during a week-long humanitarian truce in late November.

The UN children's agency, UNICEF, has described the Gaza Strip as "the most dangerous place in the world" for a child.

Speaking after a two-week visit to the besieged coastal enclave, UNICEF spokesman James Elder said he had witnessed children hospitalized for amputations who were then "killed in those hospitals" by Israeli bombardments.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says more than 19,667 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, most of them women or children.

Many of the children in the troupe's audiences are hardened beyond their years, their innocence shattered by fear and bereavement.

"I want to forget my worries and forget the people I've lost," said 15-year-old Nizar Shaheen, adding that he felt "suffocated" by life in the camps.

"I want to live my childhood like we did before," he said, adding: "We don't know where to go. Today, there's no food, no water, there's nothing."



Swollen Rivers Flood Towns in US South after Dayslong Deluge of Rain

The rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
TT
20

Swollen Rivers Flood Towns in US South after Dayslong Deluge of Rain

The rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated US South and parts of the Midwest.

Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.

“I think everybody was shocked at how quick (the river) actually did come up,” said salon owner Jessica Tuggle, who was watching Monday as murky brown water approached her business in Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital along the swollen Kentucky River, The AP news reported.

She said that as each new wave of rain arrived over the weekend, anxious residents hoped for a reprieve so they could just figure out how bad things would get and how to prepare. She and friends packed up everything she could haul out of her salon, including styling chairs, hair products and electronics, and they took it all to a nearby tap house up the hill.

“Everybody was just ‘stop raining, stop raining’ so we could get an idea of what the worst situation would be,” she said.

Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to approach a record crest on Monday.

For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.

“As long as I’ve been alive — and I’m 52 — this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant downtown.

“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”

Storms leaving devastating impact The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.

The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.

In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.

The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.

Why so much nasty weather? Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.

The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas — making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said.

Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed.

Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.

“It’s the first house we’ve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here won’t give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because we’re too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, we’re kind of screwed without a house,” Scott said.

In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

For some, grabbing the essentials also meant taking a closer look at the liquor cabinet.

In Frankfort, with water rising up to his window sills, resident Bill Jones fled his home in a boat, which he loaded with several boxes of bottles of bourbon.