RAMALLAH, June 22, 2026 (WAFA) - The Arab International Center for Research and Strategic Studies announced on Monday the launch of a package of national initiatives aimed at commemorating and honoring the memory of slain Palestinian children.
The new activities come only one month after the conclusion of the international campaign "Their Names Are Not Numbers," which received widespread local and international participation.
The initiatives include the establishment of the Palestinian Archive for the Memory of Slain Children, the issuance of a documentary book titled “Their Names Are Not Numbers”, the establishment of the Palestinian Observatory for Childhood and Children’s Rights, and the launch of the “Palestinian Childhood Ambassadors” network.
The center explained that these steps come within the framework of developing the campaign into an integrated national project aimed at preserving the memory of Palestinian children and consolidating their human presence in the national and global consciousness, considering them names, stories, and dreams that should not be reduced to numbers and statistics.
The center, in partnership with the Palestinian Official Media, concluded on May 3rd the activities of the campaign, which lasted for 72 continuous hours of live broadcasting dedicated to reciting the names of Palestinian children killed during the war on the Gaza Strip.
The campaign was launched on April 30 and witnessed the recitation of the names of 21,556 Palestinian children, with the participation of academics, journalists, researchers, human rights activists, diplomats, and political and community figures from Palestine, the Arab world, and several countries globally.
The initiative aimed to restore human dignity to the child victims and highlight their stories away from the language of numbers.
The General Supervisor of Official Media, Minister Ahmed Assaf, stressed the importance of this initiative in shedding light on Palestinian childhood issues and the violations children face, emphasizing the official media's commitment to defending humanitarian causes, foremost among them children's rights.
For her part, Walaa Batat, head of the Arab International Center for Research and Strategic Studies and the founder of the campaign idea, said that the initiative stemmed from a humanitarian and moral responsibility, affirming that a child cannot be reduced to a number, but is a name, a story, a dream, and a full life.
She added that the campaign aimed to place the human being at the center of the media narrative, resist forgetting, and preserve the children’s names as an integral part of the national and humanitarian memory.
Batat emphasized that the names documented and recited during the campaign will remain a witness to the truth, a reference for the memory of Palestinian children, and a continuous message to the world that the children of Palestine are not numbers, but lives that deserve to be told and never forgotten.
A.D./T.R.
