Shouting and screaming with glee and frustration, Gazan boys kicked soccer balls around with their bare feet. It could have been almost anywhere in the world, but this was a sandy soccer field surrounded by tents in war-torn Gaza.

In Khan Yunis, a southern city of the coastal Palestinian territory, dozens turn up for practice as often as they can on the improvized pitch set up on the beach area of Al-Mawasi.

“For the two hours during which the boys come to train and play football, they forget about their fear, about the bombing and the war,” said soccer coach Muayad Abu Afash, who launched the initiative to train children.

“Of course we’re afraid,” Khaled al-Akhras told AFP while his three sons ran across the field.

“But we got accustomed to keep on living our normal lives, even when shells are falling above our heads,” the displaced father said.

Gaza has been ravaged by eight months of war triggered by the unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Palestinian militants from Hamas.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also took some 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.

In Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive, at least 36,550 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.

More than 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced by the fighting and bombings, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA.

Abu Afash himself had to leave Gaza City for Khan Yunis in the early days of the war, before fleeing further south and then returning north as he tried to escape Israeli military operations.

All sports infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been damaged in air strikes, he said. “Stadiums have been destroyed,” he added.