Mohammad al-Abadla was born amongst falling bombs and raised amid starvation and despair.
Delivered prematurely in Gaza on October 7, 2023, he came into the world as Israel began its retaliation for the Hamas attacks.
"[At] 6am I was sleeping in my bed with my son Noah, eight months' pregnant with Mohammad," his mother, architect Amal al-Abadla, told the ABC.
"I remember that I was dreaming about a war, and I was running from the sound of the explosions and bombings near me. Then I woke up to a reality even worse.
"The walls of my bedroom were shaking and I was hearing the sounds of bombings all around me.
"Then I started bleeding because I was so afraid, so terrified and so confused and I couldn't reach my husband, who was trapped in the West Bank."
The roads were filled with panicked people, so it took Amal three hours to get to hospital, where she was admitted for an emergency C-section.
"Then the walls were shaking in the operation room. The bombing was mixed with my baby's first cry," she said.
"That was supposed to be the happiest moment of my life but it turned out that it was the most terrifying moment of my life."
Mohammad was taken to the intensive care unit, but he and his mother were soon discharged from hospital due to the mounting casualties from Israel's bombing.
Since October 2023 Amal and her children have been displaced seven times by Israel's bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
Their home has been destroyed and her husband remains stuck in the West Bank, so she raises two children alone.
There was a period in which Amal was so scared that she couldn't produce milk and struggled to find baby formula due to the blockade.
She had to take Mohammad to another mother to breastfeed him.
"That was heartbreaking for me, because I couldn't give him the least that he deserved as my baby," Amal said.
"Since then, he started to grow up in an atmosphere filled with fear."
Amal said her son was stubborn, antisocial and disinclined to laugh and play with other children.
"Since the day Mohammad was born, he knows nothing but the sounds of bombings, the sound of the drones, the sound of the warplanes," she said.
"I believe that the whole situation affected him so badly that he doesn't feel like a normal child."
Trauma may pass through generations
Aid groups say the children of Gaza have been terribly harmed by the war.
Two years into the war more than 20,000 children have been killed, according to Save the Children and UNICEF.
"Gaza's different because every single child here requires mental health support. We don't say that about anywhere else in the world," James Elder, the global spokesperson for UNICEF, told the ABC from Gaza.
"Statistically, the sheer number of children as a percentage of the population that have been killed or wounded is huge, so Gaza's different because of the level of indiscriminate attacks."
The majority are growing up in tents and ruins, deprived of food and safety.
Nearly 40,000 children have lost one or both of their parents, Gazan authorities say.
According to the UN, there are more child amputees per capita in Gaza than anywhere else in the world.
Because children make up roughly half of the Palestinian population they are especially vulnerable to the impacts of the war, Palestinian child psychologist Samah Jabr said.
"They're affected by what happens to them directly – grief, loss, displacement, starvation – but also they're affected by the loss of agency of their parents who failed to protect them in the face of this extreme violence," she said.
"Given that this is an unprecedented situation that lasted for almost two years, we really don't know what the consequences will be in the future.
"So it's a very difficult situation that will impact their life and their psychological wellbeing for the rest of their lives, and it might pass from one generation to another."
'I don't want to cry': Children lose hope
Some, like Banias Humaid, are suppressing their anxiety and sadness.
The nine-year-old, who wants to be a naturalist when she grows up, has been forced from her home in Gaza City by Israel's recent ground invasion.
"I don't want to cry. I don't want to be more upset," Banias said.
Her grandmother died during the war, a classmate of hers was killed and her house has been destroyed.
Banias's school and her friends were all in Gaza City, which the Israeli military has been systematically demolishing.
"Gaza is the place that I was born into, that I grew into," she said.
"Everything that makes me happy is in Gaza, and now everything is gone — everything is destroyed.
"I feel upset and I always think about how much of Gaza has been destroyed, how much we lost in this war, how much we miss grandma, how much we miss our house, how much we feel broken."
Banias doesn't like being asked what she hopes for in the future.
"Gaza right now is destroyed and kids can't have a future in a destroyed area like Gaza," she said.
"There's no future in Gaza, there's no hope.
"Shall you think about what your future's going to be while people are being killed or starved? Shall you think about these things instead of thinking about people in Gaza? That's not logic."
But Mohammad's mother still holds hope.
"Every mother dreams of a safe and peaceful life for her children," she said.
"I'm praying all the time that he will grow up in a place that he doesn't have to wake up on the sound of bombings, the sound of drones and the war planes, but the sound of birds.
"And I dream that one day he will have the chance to live in peace, to live with dignity, and finally have a chance to meet his father and live in a house full of love."
