Girls’ choir brings hope, smiles to war-torn Gaza Strip

A 35-member girls' choir in Gaza is using music to lift spirits and ease trauma as the war-battered enclave struggles to recover.

Guiding the ensemble is music instructor Mohammad Daher, who says the choir's mission goes beyond melody to healing.

"The choir here consists of around 35 girls. Its purpose is to provide psychological relief, revive hope, and bring smiles to the faces of the girls who are with us here," said Daher.

While purging their unpleasant feelings through music, the girls also seek to spread happiness to other people in the region and carry forward local culture.

"We have seen a lot during the war, pain, bombardment, and all kinds of suffering. So we came to sing as a way to release negative energy and to show people who we are, to be seen and to see others. We are singing traditional songs that represent us," said Noor Badwan, a member of the choir.

"I'm here to release the negative energy inside me and to bring joy to the children who are watching us and sharing the happiness of the singing we present. Through this, we revive our heritage that we almost started forgetting because of the horrors of the war we have experienced," said Mayar Souslim, another member of the choir.

The conflict between Hamas and Israel, which erupted on Oct 7, 2023, has killed 71,667 Palestinians and injured 171,434 others, Gaza's health authorities said on Wednesday.

Even after a ceasefire agreement took effect on Oct 11, 2025, the death toll has continued to climb, with 492 additional deaths and 1,356 injuries recorded.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Tuesday that despite continuing aid deliveries and efforts to expand services, the situation in Gaza remains dire for hundreds of thousands of families in need.

The UN agency and its partners are providing bread to at least 43 percent of the population across the Gaza Strip every day.

Sustainable solutions are urgently needed to meet the needs of the more than 1 million people requiring shelter support, including toolkits to repair people's homes, materials to create communal heating spaces and equipment to remove debris and rubble to clear land for housing, OCHA said.

Girls’ choir brings hope, smiles to war-torn Gaza Strip

Smart wearable devices are increasingly embedded in daily life in China, where booming sales of watches and smart glasses are reshaping the consumer electronics market.   In Beijing's Chaoyang District, smart watches have become a popular choice for shoppers seeking tools to monitor sleep, heart rate and stress.

"I often use my smart watch to monitor my sleep, heart rate, and stress. I hope it could also incorporate AI functions, allowing me to chat with it in-depth or help me complete some simple tasks," said a customer.

Beyond watches, smart glasses powered by large‑model technology are entering China's consumer market, reshaping the landscape of wearable electronics.

"It is more convenient to use smart glasses as earphones at work. This is my third pair of smart glasses, and the functions of the new one is much better than the previous ones," said a customer.

"Smart wearable devices have evolved significantly, shifting from simply displaying data to facilitating effective user interaction. As these product categories update at an accelerating pace and user demands grow increasingly diverse, manufacturers are compelled to accelerate their own cycles of innovation in both functional design and hardware configuration. Take smartwatches as an example: sales in this category have increased by more than 40 percent (compared to the same period in 2024)," said Zhang Jie, manager of Beijing Shuangjing Branch of JD Mall.

According to the latest worldwide quarterly wearable device tracker, in the first three quarters of 2025, global wrist-worn device shipments reached 150 million units, a year-on-year increase of 10 percent. 

Among them, China's cumulative shipments totaled 58.43 million units, representing a year-on-year growth of 27.6 percent. In the first half of 2025, the global smart glasses shipments reached 4.065 million units, a year-on-year increase of 64.2 percent, and China's cumulative shipments exceeded 1 million units.

China smart wearables growth fuels consumer electronics boom