"Dreams in Wafa's Eyes"

In a quiet neighborhood in Gaza, there was a little girl named Wafa Mohammed Hazem Al-Safadi. At her young age, Wafa possessed an innocence and courage that many wouldn’t expect from a child her age. She loved playing with her friends in the narrow street that was always full of children, feeling joy despite the difficulties surrounding her.

Wafa loved to draw, and she dreamed of becoming a famous artist one day. Every day, she would sit in a corner of her modest home, holding her pencils and papers, and start drawing the beautiful scenes she saw around her, like the olive trees that surrounded her home or the clear sky that she saw before the clouds of bombing would cover it on those sad days.

But one day, the sound of bombs began to grow closer to their neighborhood. Wafa was standing in the yard with her mother, watching the planes fly in the sky and hearing the explosions shaking the ground. She tried to stay brave, but her heart raced with fear. She looked at her mother and asked, "Mom, will the planes come back soon?"

Her mother smiled sadly and said, "Let’s go inside, Wafa. But remember, we have beautiful things in our lives that nothing can change, like your drawings."

Wafa went back inside and sat at her small table, taking a new sheet of paper and began drawing a picture of the beautiful sky she dreamed of. She colored the sky light blue and added tiny stars shining in the horizon. For her, drawing was a form of escape, a source of hope in the tough times.

As the days passed, Wafa continued to draw everything she dreamed of. Despite the hard circumstances, her drawings filled her home with colors of hope. She saw in every line she drew a message: "Even if the days are dark, there is always room for light and joy."

As Wafa grew older, those drawings became a part of her identity. She became known in the neighborhood as the girl who saw beauty amidst the chaos. Her big dream never stopped, and every time she drew something new, she remembered her mother’s words: "The beautiful things in our lives can never be changed by anything."