Fifteen-year-old Mahmoud Saleh never imagined that he would one day pull a cart intended for a donkey to earn income for his family.
But after his father was killed in an Israeli military attack on his carpentry workshop in Gaza City in August 2023 and Saleh’s donkey died in a subsequent shelling, he felt he had no other options.
Saleh had been forced to flee with his mother, two younger brothers and two sisters to the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, carrying with him memories of loss and the burdens of poverty.
He did not want his mother earning money by washing other people’s clothes by hand, as she had been doing due to the power outages since the Israeli attacks began on 7 October 2023.
Saleh borrowed money from an uncle to buy a donkey-drawn cart and used it to transport water to the camps for around $11 a day…….more
