How An Israeli Kindergarten School Looks Reveals A Lot About Living On The Gaza Border

The war between Israel and Gaza has been one of the most prominent news stories this year pertaining to the Middle East crisis. While it was taking place, the Inquisitr kept up with the latest just showing how terrible this war was. Hamas showed what they would do to win such as trying to blow up a nuclear power plant in hopes of causing a nuclear crisis as well as using children as human shields — not for protection but as ammo — in the propaganda war.

However, it is rare to see how civilians are reacting to the onslaught the war has brought, especially those living near the Israel-Gaza Border. Now people will get to see what life is for an Israeli community living close to the border in which they are trying to make life as normal as possible for their children, especially with their kindergarten.

According to McClatchy DC, it reports that the community of Nahal Oz — located less than a mile away from the Gaza Strip — are making renovations to protect their children. Their plan is to surround the kindergarten with a blast wall consisting of concrete blocks 22-feet tall. Plans were made one month after both Gaza and Israel agreed to a cease-fire, which ended a 50-day war between them. Throughout the conflict, more than 2,100 Palestinians along with 72 Israelis and a foreign worker have died.

Still the kibbutz community of Nahal Oz, as well as other communities, are uncertain how well the truce will hold. Roxana Silverman, a resident of neighboring kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, made her opinions known while showing visitors a spot where a mortar shell had landed on a lawn near her house, which peppered other homes with shrapnel.

“Nothing is settled. It’s all up in the air. We’re all concerned that they might start firing again. I don’t feel safe.”

Despite Nahal Oz’s concerns, they are doing their best to remain optimistic. The Blaze reported on how the kibbutz community plans to do this simply by how they are trying to offer an environment worthwhile for their children. Just a month and a half ago, the wall surrounding the kindergarten described earlier in this article looked like what is shown in the tweet attached below by Avi Mayer, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency.

This is what the same Israeli kindergarten looked like a month and a half ago, just after the summer’s hostilities. pic.twitter.com/nTHcjrILio

— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) October 26, 2014

Now the walls have been painted with beautiful scenes of rolling meadows of green grass and trees, a river, and a beautiful clear sky along with a hot air balloon. Avi Mayer even made a statement about how beautiful Nahal Oz looked from the last time he was there, calling it “profoundly abnormal” because of the beautification’s purpose.

“You visit these places and you’re struck by how profoundly abnormal life is in southern Israel.”

“You walk around the kibbutz [Nahal Oz], these beautiful, idyllic surroundings with green lawns and trees, and you see this stark concrete structure ahead of you. It looks like you’re going to walk into an army base or some fortified bunker, and you realize this grotesquely painful measure is necessary to protect kindergarten kids.”

“Inside the kindergarten, you see kids all over the place, playing, doing art projects with teachers, and you’re struck by the contrast between the innocence within and the extreme measures necessary to protect those innocent lives.”

Al-Monitor has a gallery of how life in the kindergarten, surrounded by the confines of the 22-feet tall stone wall, is for its residents. The pictures were taken early last month.

What do you think of Nahal Oz’s attempts to give their children the best childhood possible despite their situation? Is it admirable to you or do you think there is another way?

[Image via Avi Mayer’s Twitter]