Swimming classes have started again in Gaza after three years of war, with hundreds of children learning to float, doggy paddle and take their first strokes in five makeshift sea pools built from sandbags and rubble.The lessons allow a few hundred girls and boys to reclaim their childhood for a few hours in a place where there are no playgrounds, no formal education and children live in fear of continuing Israeli attacks. A UN survey in March found that 96% of children felt death was imminent.
Activity on the Gaza seafront
“Swimming gives me a chance to escape the war, and the worries I live with,” said Alma Shabat, 13, who saw her mother killed in an Israeli strike in May.After three weeks of classes, her favourite stroke is freestyle, she has made new friends and she is no longer afraid of the waves and open sea. “Coming to the beach is a beautiful and enjoyable experience,” she said.Swimming classes begin again in Gaza – loopAmjed Tantesh, who founded Gaza’s first swimming academy more than two decades ago, has mobilised dozens of volunteers this summer to create the string of pools on the beaches of central Gaza, with tarpaulins providing some shade from the fierce Mediterranean sun.There is very little heavy machinery left in Gaza so they did everything by hand, moving tonnes of rubble and filling sandbags to build walls, then excavating sand to deepen the pools.
