This paper focuses on the representation of Palestinian children in short stories by young writers from Gaza. Children have always been central to the Palestinian national narrative (in works by Kananfani, Naji al Ali’s “Hanthala,” and as the Intifada’s “Children of the Stones.” Many recent films have figured children as main characters. Moreover, Palestinian children have figured in anti-Palestinian discourse, with Israeli politicians referring to them as “little snakes” or “human shields.” Unlike other national figures such as the “refugees,” “women,” or freedom fighters/fida’iyoun, children have not received much critical attention. To address this gap, my paper seeks to draw attention to the Palestinian children peopling the literary imagination of young Gazans who ground their fictional writing in their own experience of earlier wars on Gaza. Particularly, I focus my analysis on the collection of short stories “Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine” which was edited by the late Refaat Alareer and was published in 2014. I show that while the stories offer a range of representations of children--as victims of Israeli violence, survivors, witnesses—they depart from earlier representations of children by their resistance to symbolization and idealization. Their gritty realism offers a glimpse of how Palestinian childhoods are imagined, produced, and experienced by young writers who, only few years ago, were children themselves.