In this fully animated vertical video, CNN met and interviewed 10-year-old Zaid, who was born and raised in Gaza, and where he lived until Israeli bombardment in late 2023 forced his family to escape. From sleeping in windowless rooms to avoid shattered glass, to the loss of a beloved family dog, Zaid tells his story of life under siege, and of fleeing “the worst war he’d ever seen.”
We interviewed Zaid over the course of several weeks, working carefully with his parents, who had escaped to Egypt with Zaid and his younger brother, in order to not retraumatize him in the recalling of his story. This video is the culmination of those interviews and a living, animated testimony to the home Zaid sees in his dreams but is unlikely to ever return to again. The piece is an artful and moving insight into a child’s lived experience of war.
Children in Gaza are the most vulnerable group affected by this war, and we usually don’t hear their perspective. In this video, judges were impressed by the thought process of deviating from showing images that we’re all flooded with and instead creating an animation, marrying it with Zaid’s voice to transport us into his world. The combination of his tragic and sad story with the almost upbeat narration is very authentic and will stay with the judges for a long time.
