ABSTRACT
This study examines how 57 Jewish and Arab children (aged 4–8), displaced from their homes during the 2023–2024 Israel–Hezbollah war, interpret war and articulate moral reasoning. Using a qualitative design and reflexive thematic analysis, the study draws on children’s accounts generated through card-based interviews addressing war, displacement and home. Although the interviews did not include questions specifically about death or killing, children raised these issues within their broader accounts. The analysis developed three central themes: (1) perceptions of death, (2) perceptions of killing and (3) imagined responses to encountering the ‘enemy’. Across both groups, children expressed fear and confusion about death and generally condemned killing. However, their imagined responses to the perceived ‘enemy’ varied: Jewish children more often described retaliatory or defensive reactions, whereas Arab children more frequently emphasised restraint, peace and shared human suffering. The findings suggest that children’s moral meaning-making is an emergent, context-dependent process shaped by interactions among personal experience, collective narratives and societal values. Through its analysis of children’s accounts, the study contributes to research on war and childhood, political violence and children’s moral reasoning.