How the Gaza war is affecting children’s mental health – Firstpost

Israel’s nine-month war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip has destroyed the area’s medical system.

In the Israeli attacks, hospitals were destroyed and health facilities were hit and evacuated.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, especially children, struggle to maintain their mental health due to few resources and no safe place to recover.

A burden on mental health

The trauma of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians is relentless.

They have suffered from friends and family members being killed by Israeli bombs.

They suffered injuries or disfigurement. As the violence raged, they gathered in houses or tents and ran away again and again, never finding a safe place to rest.

According to experts and practitioners who work with The Associated PressAnxiety, fear, depression, sleep deprivation, anger and aggression are common.

At the beginning of the conflict, Nabila Hamada gave birth to twin boys in Gaza – in a hospital full of internally displaced people and smelling of decomposing corpses.

When Israeli forces threatened the hospital, she and her husband were able to escape with only one of the babies because medical staff said the other was too weak to leave.

The largest hospital in the Gaza Strip was soon overrun by Israeli forces and she never saw the boy again.

Hamada, 40, was traumatized by the loss of one twin and was so afraid of losing the other that she was paralyzed and no longer prepared for the daily struggle for survival.

“I am unable to care for my other, older children or give them the love they need,” she said.

There are few resources to help Palestinians process what they are going through.

Psychologists say the turmoil and overwhelming number of traumatized people limit their ability to provide real help, so they are offering a kind of “psychological first aid” to ease the worst symptoms.

Children are the most vulnerable

The psychological stress of the war can have long-term effects on children’s development, says Ulrike Julia Wendt, children’s emergency coordinator at the International Rescue Committee. Wendt has been visiting Gaza since the beginning of the war.

They had nightmares and wet the bed because they suffered from stress, noise, crowds and constant change, she said.

“There are about 1.2 million children who need mental health and psychosocial support. This basically affects almost all children in Gaza.”

Repeated displacements compound the trauma: an estimated 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced from their homes. Most live in squalid tent camps and struggle to find food and water.

She said simple programs like play sessions and art classes can make a difference: “The goal is to show them that not only bad things happen.”

Nashwa Nabil in Deir al-Balah said her three children have lost all sense of security. Her eldest is 13 and her youngest is 10. “They can no longer control their pee, they chew on their clothes, they scream and have become verbally and physically aggressive,” she said. “When my son Moataz hears a plane or a tank, he hides in the tent.”

In the central city of Deir al-Balah, a psychosocial team from the Al Majed Association works with dozens of children, teaching them how to respond to the reality of war and giving them space to play.

“In the event of an attack, they go into a fetal position and seek shelter away from buildings or windows. We run scenarios, but anything is possible in Gaza,” says project manager Georgette Al-Khateeb.

Even for those fleeing Gaza, the psychological burden remains high.

Mohamed Khalil, his wife and their three children were displaced seven times before reaching Egypt. His wife and children arrived in January and he joined them in March. Their eight-year-old daughter hid in the bathroom during the artillery shelling and shooting, saying: “We are going to die.”

Only when his mother explained to her six-year-old son that as a martyr he had the chance to meet God and ask for the fruit and vegetables that were denied to them in famine-stricken Gaza was he able to go to sleep.

As they fled on foot along a designated “safe corridor,” with Israeli gunfire at close range, Khalil described their fear.

According to Khalil, even now that they are in Egypt, the children are frightened and reserved.

They have signed up for math, language and physical education classes, as well as art and play therapy sessions, at the Psychological and Academic Services for Palestinians, a new initiative in Cairo.

“We saw a need for these children who have experienced more horrors than any of us will ever see,” said founder, psychologist Rima Balshe.

She recalled a recent trip with five-year-old twins from Gaza who were playing and suddenly froze when they heard helicopters.

“Is that an Israeli fighter plane?” they asked. She explained that it was an Egyptian plane. “So Egyptians like us?” they asked. “Yes,” she reassured them. They had left Gaza, but Gaza had not left them.

There is hope that the children traumatized by the war can heal their wounds, but there is still a long way to go, Balshe said.

“I wouldn’t say they’re recovering, but I certainly see signs that healing is beginning. They may never fully recover from the trauma they’ve endured, but we’re working now to deal with the loss and grief,” she said. “It’s a long process.”

Carrying the scars of trauma

Many of the survivors of the October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel that sparked the Gaza war are traumatized and seeking ways to recover. More than 1,200 Israelis were killed by the militants and more than 250 others were abducted by them.

Jehad El Hams was hidden near Khan Younis in the south. He claimed he lost his right eye and the fingers of his right hand when he picked up what he thought was a can of food. It was an unexploded bomb that detonated. His children were almost hit.

Since then he has been disoriented and cannot sleep.

“I cry every time I look at myself and see what I have become,” he said.

He turned to one of the few mental health initiatives in the Gaza Strip, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Fouad Hammad, a mental health officer at UNRWA, said they typically see 10 to 15 adults a day in the Khan Younis shelters with eating and sleeping disorders, extreme anger and other problems.

Mahmoud Rayhan saw his family destroyed. His young son and daughter were killed in an Israeli attack. His wife had to have a leg amputated. Now he isolates himself in his tent and sleeps most of the day. He speaks to almost no one.

He said he didn’t know how to express what was happening to him. He was shaking.

He sweats. “I have been crying and I feel nothing but heaviness in my heart.”

A relative, Abdul-Rahman Rayhan, lost his father, two siblings and four cousins ​​in a strike. Now, when he hears a bomb attack, he trembles and feels dizzy, his heart races. “I feel like I’m in a nightmare and I’m waiting for God to wake me up,” said the 20-year-old.

With contributions from The Associated Press

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