Amid the rubbles of Khan Younis, a Turkish NGO helps reclaim parts of Gaza as a 'Colourful City'

In a narrow passage behind the UNRWA clinic in Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern part of the war-torn, besieged coastal enclave, an alley once dulled by ash and shrapnel has found a fragile glow.

Until recently, the Abu Sufyan neighbourhood in Khan Younis was little more than a corridor of cracked concrete and half-hanging doors, its walls stripped bare by dust and gunpowder.

Children wove between piles of debris, their games dictated by the geography of destruction. At night, darkness falls quickly in a place where electricity is scarce, and memories of bombardment linger just beneath the surface.

On Tuesday evening, however, strands of small lights stretched overhead for the first time since the war began. Paper lanterns and crescent moons swayed between buildings. 

Murals climbed fractured walls. Residents have begun calling it "The Colourful City"—a modest but deliberate act of defiance in a city still counting its losses.

The initiative was organised by the Turkish Yadi Basak Foundation in coordination with local artists and residents, and attended by Khan Younis Mayor Alaa al-Batta. For those gathered, it was less a ceremony than a collective rehearsal in how to live again.

Ramadan, long a month of communal meals and crowded evening streets in Gaza, arrives this year under the shadow of a tenuous ceasefire that took effect in October 2025, which was supposed to end two years of an Israeli genocidal war. 

Yet calm has proved elusive. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, more than 600 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began amid continued shelling and sporadic attacks. 

Over the course of the war, the ministry says more than 72,000 Palestinians were killed and more than 200,000 injured, the majority civilians. 

Entire neighbourhoods across the Strip were flattened. The infrastructure collapsed. Schools and hospitals were damaged or destroyed. 

UN agencies have warned that much of Gaza remains deprived of basic services, with reconstruction stalled and humanitarian access inconsistent.

In that context, the decision to hang decorations might seem almost unbearably small. But in the Abu Sufyan neighbourhood, small gestures carry weight.

"The idea was to revive a place the war tried to erase," Diaa Abu Mustafa, coordinator of the Yadi Basak Foundation, told The New Arab. 

"This is the first time since the war began that we have seen Ramadan decorations like this. We wanted children to feel that Ramadan still means something - that it has not been taken from them as well," he said. 

The foundation worked with the municipality, artists and local families in the days before the holy month. Volunteers cleared debris, washed soot-stained walls, and sketched mural outlines. Buckets of paint appeared where cement dust once gathered.

"We know colour will not rebuild homes," Abu Mustafa said. "But it can soften what remains. We cannot replace what people lost, but we can try to return some warmth to these streets."

Khan  Younis Mayor Alaa al-Batta, walking slowly beneath the lights, described the initiative as part of what he called "moral reconstruction", a phrase that hangs heavily in a city where physical reconstruction remains uncertain.

"Khan Younis suffered vast destruction - homes, roads, public facilities," he told TNA, "But what we see here is the will of the community. Reconstruction is not only about concrete. It begins with people deciding they will not surrender their public spaces to ruin."

Near one wall, Palestinian artist Hani Dahman dipped his brush into gold paint, tracing Arabic calligraphy across cracked cement. Around him, children offered unsolicited advice on colours and shapes.

"With the help of residents and supporting groups, we are decorating the neighbourhood with Ramadan greetings and drawings," Dahman told TNA. 

"For more than two and a half years, children here have been deprived of joy. This is our attempt to give some of it back," he said. 

One mural shows Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock beneath the words: "We are a people who love life." Dahman stepped back to study it, then smiled.

"This is our third Ramadan under these conditions," he said. "We repeat that we love life and we want peace. There are children here who want to live."

Beside him, artist Mohammed Attallah added finishing touches to a painted lantern, its bright reds and blues stark against the grey wall.

"We welcome Ramadan every year," he said. "But this time, we welcome it among the rubble. Despite the destruction, people here insist on holding onto the spirit of the month - joy, faith, gathering."

He gestured to the lights overhead. "Even if all we have are small lamps and scraps of fabric, we use them. We want our children to know that joy is not a luxury. It is their right."

Under one string of lights, Lin Abu Mustafa stood, staring upward as if the bulbs were stars.

"We came so you could make us happy," she said quietly. "So you could bring back Ramadan. We have not seen real joy for two and a half years."

She described living in a damaged house, stones piled where walls once stood. "Our memories are under the rubble," she said.

Nearby, Hiba Abdullah, another resident of Khan Younis, said the hardship extends beyond physical destruction. Prices remain high, work is scarce, and many families rely on aid. Still, she insisted, people are determined.

"Last Ramadan was simple," she recalled. "We had communal iftars. A drummer walked through the alleys to wake people for suhoor. Then we were forced to flee for six months."

When they returned, she said, the scale of destruction was overwhelming. "But we came back determined. We want to paint what is left, hang simple decorations, light small lamps - anything to remind our children there is still life here."

The coloured neighbourhood itself tells a layered story. Bullet marks remain visible. Some neighbouring homes are still uninhabitable. Gaps in walls reveal rooms exposed to the sky. Yet between these scars hang coloured ribbons and hand-cut crescents.

On one wall, children have written their wishes in careful handwriting: "A new house;" "A school;" "A toy;" "A joyful Eid."

Their requests are modest, almost painfully so.

As evening falls, the lights flicker on. The neighbourhood glows faintly against the surrounding darkness, a narrow strip of colour in a city where grief is never far away.

The initiative will target all neighbourhoods in the war-torn city, according to Deiaa Abu Mustafa. 

He said, "Our people deserve to live in peace and enjoy the rituals of the holy month of Ramadan as well asl all the other people around the world."

For residents, the transformation is not an attempt to deny the devastation. The rubble remains. Reconstruction funds have yet to reach many families. The ceasefire's future is uncertain.

In a Gaza still struggling to breathe after years of war, the Colourful Alley is not a solution. It does not rebuild hospitals or restore electricity. It does not bring back those who were lost.

What it offers instead is smaller: a refusal to let destruction define the totality of life.