Most Gazans are scarred by previous wars with Israel
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Few prospects for respite in the besieged enclave
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA, Oct 21 (Reuters) –
Two weeks after intense Israeli bombing, children in Gaza are showing increasing signs of trauma, say parents and psychiatrists in the small, crowded enclave, with no safe place to hide from the bombs and little prospect of respite.
Children make up about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, living under near-constant bombardment, many of them crammed into temporary shelters in UN-run schools after fleeing their homes with little food or clean water.
Israel is expected to soon launch a ground attack on Gaza in response to the cross-border assault carried out by Hamas fighters against southern Israel on October 7, in which more than 1,400 people were killed and another 210 were taken hostage.
“The children … have begun to develop serious symptoms of trauma, such as seizures, enuresis, fear, aggressive behavior, nervousness and not being able to separate from their parents,” said Gaza psychiatrist Fadel Abu Heen.
More than 4,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza to date, including more than 1,500 children, while 13,000 people have been injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The conditions in the makeshift shelters at United Nations schools, where more than 380,000 people are camped in the hope of escaping the bombing, only exacerbate the problem.
Sometimes there are 100 people sleeping in each classroom, requiring continuous cleaning. There is little electricity and water, so the bathrooms and toilets are very dirty.
“Our children suffer a lot at night. They cry all night, they pee accidentally and I don’t have time to clean them, one after the other,” explains Tahreer Tabash, mother of six children sheltered in a school.
Even there they are not safe. Schools have been attacked several times, according to the United Nations, and Tabash has seen attacks on nearby buildings. When your children hear a chair move, they jump in fear.
“The lack of a safe place has created a general sense of fear and horror among the entire population, and children are the most affected,” Abu Heen said.
“Some of them reacted directly and expressed their fears. Even if they need immediate intervention, they may be in a better state than the other children who kept the horror and trauma inside them,” he added.
MENTAL LOAD
A house in Khan Yunis, in the south of the enclave, houses about 90 people, including 30 children under 18 years of age, who have to sleep in shifts due to lack of space.
“When there is an explosion or any target is hit nearby, they are always screaming, always scared. We try to calm the younger ones, we tell them: ‘Don’t worry, they’re just fireworks’. But the older ones understand what’s happening,” he explains. Ibrahim al-Agha, an engineer sheltered in the house.
“They will need a lot of mental support when this war is over,” Agha said.
However, Gaza’s health system was already overstretched before this month’s war, which has brought it to the brink of collapse, and mental health experts have long warned of the terrible toll it was already taking on children.
A 2022 report by the humanitarian organization Save the Children found that the psychosocial well-being of children in Gaza was at “alarmingly low levels” following 11 days of fighting in 2021, and that half of Gaza’s children were in need of support.
Mental health experts in Gaza have said post-traumatic stress disorder does not exist there because trauma in the enclave is ongoing, with repeated episodes of armed conflict dating back almost two decades.
Early Saturday, after an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in Gaza City and killed many members of the Abo Akr family, a large group of children were among those watching rescue teams searching for survivors. and corpses among the rubble.
While the surrounding women wailed and cried, the children stood by, expressionless on their faces. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; writing by Angus McDowall; editing by Crispian Balmer and Mark Heinrich)
Source: Ambito
