Children’s paintings can be a powerful witness to the experiences and pains they have suffered. Those on show at The Gallery in Oxford Town Hall certainly are. While children in the UK are using their crayons to depict smiley pictures of mummy and daddy, their pets and pretty flowers, children caught up in the bombardment of Gaza paint weeping trees, tanks, helicopters, guns and flames.

Entitled Loss of Innocence, the collection of 50 children’s pictures on show until January 31, were gathered together by British peace activist Rod Cox who visited Gaza in March 2009. His aim is to educate us in the West, and provide a psychological boost to those involved in Palestine, raise their self-esteem and help them to believe they are not as isolated as they feel.

The paintings show the destruction of apartment blocks, mosques, ambulances and civilians. Angry flames curling out of buildings and up towards the sky play a great part in these drawings that call out to us all to help the young observers. One picture of a crumbling apartment block was painted by a child who witnessed his family being crushed when bulldozers pulled their home on top of them.

Another child who captures similar destruction with his paints calls out for us to give him the right to live as a child. The destruction of trees also haunts these pictures, time and time again. Jasra-Kamal Mahmad El Sosy, has captured the flaming sky in his work Gaza Under Fire which is observed by a large weeping eye pushing its way through the flames as it gazes down at the blood red landscape from which there is no escape.

Although the children who painted the pictures will not see them hanging in Oxford, they are following the progress of their art on the Internet as it makes its way round the UK, stopping off at schools, village halls and other venues. This project is supported by Gaza Community Health, The Gaza Ministry of Education, UNESCO, various Youth Groups and NGOs.