Three years after the October 7 attacks, two teenagers living on opposite sides of the Gaza border have described how fear, displacement and loss have shaped their lives.
Ron Shargian, 15, was 12 when Hamas militants crossed into southern Israel. Kazem Doghmash, now 14, was 11 when Israel launched its military assault on Gaza in response.
Growing up after the October 7 attacks
Shargian was at home in Netiv HaAsara, the Israeli community closest to the Gaza border, when he saw militants on paragliders passing over a wall intended to protect the area.
Seventeen of his neighbours were killed. Shargian and his family spent 11 hours inside their bomb shelter before security forces rescued them.
“It feels like some kind of nightmare,” he said, describing the day as surreal and something he would not have believed if someone had told him it was going to happen.
The family was displaced after the attack, first staying in a hotel for evacuees, then in Tel Aviv and later in another hotel. They spent a year and a half in Gan Yavne before returning home just over a year ago.
“It was really hard to come back,” Shargian said. “But I also anticipated it very much. I really missed my home, my friends, the community — it’s something that you don’t have anywhere else.”
He said he still struggled to think about people on the other side of the border. “Up until October 7th, I thought that we could make peace. But from that day, something inside me broke.”
Despite that, he has tried to resume an ordinary teenage life, learning the guitar, spending time with friends at the beach and, at times, feeling distant from the wider conflict.
Rocket warnings and air-raid sirens can quickly bring the danger back. “Because we’re so used to this reality,” he said, “we just don’t make a big deal out of it.”
He said the alarms still triggered a physical reaction, with his muscles tightening and adrenaline rushing, even though he had become accustomed to it.
Life for children in Gaza
For Doghmash, the war has destroyed the routines and places associated with childhood. “Lots of things has been destroyed for me,” he said.
Although a ceasefire brought an end to major combat last October, he said the violence had continued and become more difficult. Palestinian officials in Gaza say more than 1,400 people have been killed there since the ceasefire formally began.
“Before the war, I am just being a kid,” Doghmash said, remembering what he described as “a good life”.
His school was destroyed, and he said he and his family were now focused on the practical question of survival. “My life has been destroyed,” he said. “My school has been destroyed, a lot of things have been destroyed for me.”
Doghmash has returned to studying at the British International School in Gaza, which is operating from a new location after its original building was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. He hopes to become a doctor and said English was his favourite subject.
As he showed the rubble of his family home, he spoke of wanting to return to a life in which children could attend school and be happy, rather than worry about finding food and water.
The United Nations children’s agency says more than 21,000 Palestinian children have been reported killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, during Israel’s counteroffensive. Dozens of Israeli children have also died, including 37 in the initial Hamas attacks.
Despite the experiences they have endured, both boys said they were still finding moments in which they could simply be children.
