Hollywood actor and martial arts legend Jackie Chan was deeply moved after watching a video showing the plight of children in Gaza.
During a promotional event for his upcoming Chinese film "Unexpected Family" (out January 8), Chan said the words of a Palestinian child in the video left him shaken to the core.
The 71-year-old star recalled watching footage in which a child from Gaza was asked a simple question: what he wanted to become when he grew up.
The child’s response, Chan said, was devastating. “Children here never get to grow up,” the boy replied.
The actor said that from the moment the child began speaking, he lost control over his emotions. “As soon as I heard him, my tears started falling,” he said. “I couldn’t endure it.”
Jackie Chan speaking about the children of Gaza 💔 pic.twitter.com/Kg7Dp1KMrG
— Dr. Umar Khan (@ahl_e_uloom) December 31, 2025
He explained that the boy’s tone — quiet, steady, almost detached — made the moment even more devastating. “There was no expression on his face,” Chan noted. “He was already used to death.”
Reflecting on what he had witnessed, Chan spoke at length about how war reshapes a child’s understanding of life and time. He said the video forced him to confront the reality that for many children in Gaza, the idea of a future is not abstract — it is absent.
“We ask children what they want to be when they grow up,” Chan said, “but for them, growing up itself is uncertain.”
Chan also reflected on how people often fear aging, while failing to recognize it as a privilege denied to millions living under violence. “People are afraid of getting old,” he pointed out. “But being able to grow old is actually a blessing life gives you.” Pausing, he added, “Those children may never reach that blessing.”
The actor emphasized that what haunted him most was not just the suffering depicted in the video, but its normalization.
Chan noted the child’s matter-of-fact response revealed how deeply violence has become woven into the daily life. “When a child can say something like that without emotion,” he said, “it tells you everything about the world they are living in."
Israel’s war against Gaza was reignited on October 7, 2023, and has continued for over two years, leaving catastrophic human and material losses.
More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 171,000 wounded, the majority of them were women and children.
Entire neighborhoods have been completely destroyed, critical infrastructure leveled, and living conditions rendered uninhabitable, with reconstruction costs estimated to reach tens of billions of dollars.
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