DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — As the music comes on in a Gaza refugee camp, a group of boys and girls start showing off their breakdancing moves, kicking and spinning with intense focus on their fast footwork. Two young girls grin at each other as they nailed a tricky part of the routine.

It’s a rare moment of respite and catharsis amid the harsh realities of life in the Gaza Strip. The children, some wearing sliders on their feet, dance next to mangled metal rods jutting out from a mound of rubble and shattered concrete. The school that trains them is in the Nuseirat refugee camp, a crowded, built-up camp in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

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