With a Ceasefire on the Cards, A Future of Peace Rests With Gaza’s Children

Hamas targeted Gaza’s children long ago; now Israel must answer with education, healing, and integration.

The news that Hamas has indicated to Egyptian and Qatari mediators that it is willing to accept a ceasefire proposal has been greeted with cautious optimism. For Israel, the return of hostages must remain the immediate priority, and no agreement can overlook their suffering. Yet even if every hostage were returned safely, a ceasefire alone would not guarantee peace. At best it would pause the fighting, but without deeper change the seeds of the next conflict will already be growing. If the world truly wants to end this cycle, the focus must turn toward Gaza’s children, because it is in their hands that the future of peace rests.

Hamas itself understood this long ago. Its leaders invested heavily in shaping the minds of children, ensuring that propaganda reached them in classrooms, summer camps, television shows, and even playtime. Children have been taught that Jews are their enemies and that death in battle is the highest calling. Cartoon characters like Farfur the mouse once told young viewers that their role was to join the fight against Israel, before being “martyred” on air. Textbooks distributed in Gaza schools have praised violence and painted Israel as a temporary occupier to be destroyed. Hamas knew what every regime that depends on control knows: you cannot easily teach an old dog new tricks, but if you start with the young, you can mould them for life.

The evidence for this is well documented. The European Commission’s 2021 review of Palestinian Authority school textbooks, the same ones used in UNRWA schools across Gaza, found that while many lessons were ordinary, others contained deeply problematic material, including the glorification of martyrdom and imagery that fostered hostility rather than coexistence. The Commission said clearly that it has “no tolerance” for antisemitism or incitement, and it called for urgent curriculum reform. More recently, independent monitors like IMPACT-se have catalogued examples of maths problems framed around counting martyrs, geography exercises erasing Israel from maps, and history lessons presenting armed struggle as the only path forward. When such material forms the basis of a child’s education, the cost is not just poor learning but the entrenchment of hatred.

This is why the return of hostages, important as it is, cannot be the end of Israel’s mission if it wants true security. The greater task is breaking the cycle of indoctrination and giving Gaza’s children a chance to grow up differently from their parents. These children are just as much hostages as those held in Hamas’s tunnels, though theirs is a captivity of trauma and ideology rather than bars and chains. To ignore that is to guarantee that the war we see now will repeat itself in another generation.

Rescuing Gaza’s children requires more than rebuilding physical infrastructure. It means rebuilding the human spirit through education that opens rather than closes minds, through therapy that heals rather than festers, and through opportunities that replace the lure of militancy with the promise of dignity and achievement. The challenge is immense. These children have seen things no child should see: bombs tearing through neighbourhoods, funerals for friends, parents maimed or killed, and years of scarcity. Trauma has scarred them as deeply as propaganda. Left untreated, trauma does not fade; it hardens and deepens, making children vulnerable to manipulation by extremists who offer them a false sense of purpose. To rescue them is not only a humanitarian duty but a strategic necessity.

Israel and its partners must therefore invest in programmes that provide trauma counselling, arts, sport, and community spaces where children can be children again. But there must also be a transformation in how education is delivered. A new curriculum should focus on science, literature, mathematics, and shared human values. Narratives of martyrdom must be replaced with narratives of shared possibilities. A child who dreams of being a doctor, teacher, or engineer is far less likely to be persuaded that dying in battle is their highest purpose.

Integration has to be part of this effort. The separation of Jewish and Palestinian children is one of the greatest obstacles to breaking down suspicion and hate. When young people grow up never meeting one another, it becomes easier for extremists to portray the other as less than human. But when children share classrooms, play on the same football pitches, and discover common ground in the ordinary joys of youth, the myths fall away. Integration is not easy and it will face resistance, yet it is one of the few ways to truly dismantle the propaganda that Hamas has cultivated. If Israel is serious about peace, it must support and promote initiatives that bring Jewish and Gazan children together in education and cultural exchange.

There are models to learn from. In Northern Ireland, integrated schools brought Catholic and Protestant children together after decades of conflict, showing them that their classmates were not enemies but friends. In Rwanda, community-based healing and shared educational programmes helped young survivors of genocide grow beyond the hatreds their elders carried. No comparison is perfect, but the principle remains: if children can be taught to hate, they can also be taught to live together in peace.

The international community has a vital role. Too often, outside actors have focused narrowly on ceasefires and condemnations, neglecting the deeper work of shaping what comes next. If the world is serious about peace, it must fund trauma recovery, teacher training, and cross-community projects with as much urgency as it funds emergency relief. Arab states that have long claimed to stand with Palestinians must decide whether they will continue to let Gaza’s children be raised on victimhood, or whether they will help fund a future that allows them to thrive. Western governments that call for de-escalation must match their words with investment in education reform and peace-building.

The alternative is grimly familiar. If the children of Gaza continue to be raised in classrooms filled with antisemitic lessons, in summer camps that glorify militancy, and in communities where trauma festers unchecked, then the ceasefire now on the table will be nothing more than a prelude to another war. Hamas knew long ago that the future would be decided by the children. Israel and its allies must now prove that they understand this too, and must act accordingly.

The hostages must come home. But when they do, Israel and the world must not stop there. The children of Gaza are just as much hostages, bound not by walls or prisons but by trauma and indoctrination. To free them is to free Gaza from Hamas’s grip, to free Israel from a cycle of endless war, and to give the region a chance at a peace that endures. The future of peace rests with Gaza’s children. If they are given hope, the war can finally end.