孤児を養子に…戦火のガザに見つけた「楽園」

【ガザ市ＡＦＰ＝時事】戦闘で荒廃したパレスチナ自治区ガザ市の自宅で、イマン・ファラハトさん（４５）と夫のラミ・アロウキさん（４７）は、今年養子に迎えたジャナちゃんがもたらした「楽園」を満喫している。イスラエルとイスラム組織ハマスの戦いが１５か月以上にわたり続くガザ地区では、多くの子どもが孤児となっている。（写真はジャナちゃんにミルクを飲ませるファラハトさん）
　ジャナちゃんを養子に迎えたのは今年１月。現在は生後５か月だ。
　ファラハトさんと夫は、性別や外見にはこだわらず、幼い子を希望していたという。
　「元の名前はマッサだが、正式にマッサからジャナに改名した」とファラハトさん。ジャナはアラビア語で「楽園」を意味する。
　パレスチナ自治政府職員のアロウキさんは「最初は喜びと不安が入り混じっていた。（養子を取るのは）大きな責任を伴うことであり、私たちは子どもを持ったことがなかったから」と語った。
　また「養子を取ることを考えたことはあったが、決心したのは侵攻が始まってからだった」という。ガザ地区では家族全員が亡くなり、子どもだけが残されるケースが相次いでいた。
　国連児童基金（ユニセフ）のパレスチナ自治区担当者が昨年９月、ＡＦＰに語ったところによると、ガザ地区で親とはぐれたり、親を亡くしたりした子どもは１万９０００人と推定される。
　ガザ地区で養子に取られた子どもの数に関するデータは、これまでに入手できていない。
　アロウキさんはＡＦＰに、「パレスチナ人はお互いを支え合うべきだ」という信念も動機の一つだったと語った。
　「私たちは全世界に見捨てられ、失望した。だからパレスチナ人だけはお互いを見捨ててはならない」
　ジャナちゃんを家に迎えてからは「美しく素晴らしい方向に、人生が１８０度変わった」という。
　アロウキさんは「ジャナの名前の通り、私たちの世界はまさに楽園と化した」と話した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2025/03/28-18:56）

In their home in war-devastated Gaza City, Iman Farhat and her husband cherish the paradise brought by their newly-adopted baby, one of many orphans in the Palestinian territory after more than 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Wrapping five-month-old Jannah in a brightly coloured blanket, Farhat gently sang as she rocked her to sleep.
I chose Jannah just as she was, the new mother said smiling, explaining the couple simply wanted to adopt a young child without preference for gender or physical appearance.
Her name was Massa, and I officially changed her name from Massa to Jannah, which means paradise in Arabic, she added.
Farhat, 45, and her husband Rami al-Arouqi, 47, adopted the well-behaved and chubby baby in January.
At first, we had mixed feelings of both joy and fear, because it is a huge responsibility and we had never had a child, said Arouqi, a Palestinian Authority employee.
The couple already owned a cat.
The idea of adopting a child had crossed our minds, but it was cemented during the war which wiped out entire families and left only orphans, he added.
In September, the United Nations children's fund, UNICEF, estimated there were 19,000 children who were unaccompanied or separated from their parents in Gaza, Jonathan Crickx, UNICEF's spokesman for the Palestinian territories, told AFP.
Data for the number of adoptions in Gaza was not immediately available.
The war sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel left more than 69 percent of Gaza's buildings damaged or destroyed, displaced almost the entire population and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.
- Life 'turned upside down' -
Hamas's attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to official figures.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 48,446 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN considers these figures reliable.
Farhat and her husband said that before Jannah's adoption, she was taken care of by the SOS Children's Villages -- an international NGO which looks after children in need.
After the NGO's premises in the southern Gaza city of Rafah were destroyed in the war, the organisation had to move to nearby Khan Yunis where they could not house all the children in buildings, so they set up tents for them, Farhat said.
Her husband Arouqi told AFP that another motive for adopting a child came from the idea that Palestinians should stand by each other's side.
The whole world has abandoned and let us down, so we shouldn't let each other down, he added.
Once the pair took Jannah home, our life was turned upside down in a beautiful and pleasant way, he said.
Her name is Jannah and our world has truly become a paradise.
A fragile truce took effect on January 19, largely halting the devastating fighting between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
The ceasefire's first phase ended last weekend.
While Israel has said it wants to extend the first phase until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on a transition to the deal's second phase, which should lead to a permanent end to the war.