Omar is nine years old. His father, his mother and his twin brother were killed in an Israeli bombing and he now lives with his aunt in southern Gaza. “The boy closed his eyes for long moments when he told me all this,” explains James Elder, spokesman for this newspaper, to this newspaper. UNICEF, which is currently in the Strip. “I asked why and his aunt told me that Omar was terrified that the image of his parents and his brother would disappear from his mind, as has happened in real life. He closed his eyes to continue seeing them. This is how the boy faced his trauma, it is the mechanism that he has found to survive his hell,” she adds.
Omar represents tens of thousands of children in Gaza, where, according to humanitarian workers and representatives of international organizations, all the children, that is, one million, need psychological support after eight months of war in which they have lost everything that made them feel safe: family, home, schools, friends…
Suicidal thoughts, uncontrollable tremors, memory loss, self-harm, inability to project into the future or nighttime incontinence are some of the symptoms that show the serious deterioration of children’s mental health. In a tent in Rafah, at the southern end of the Strip, Ghada Oudah, a former international NGO worker, takes care of her three orphaned nephews, aged between 3 and 13. The bodies of her parents remain trapped under rubble in the north. “Since his death, the children have had nocturnal incontinence, their hair is falling out and they experience difficulties speaking,” explains the woman.
He 40% of Gaza’s population is under 14 years old, according to official Palestinian sources. The Ministry of Health in Gaza, where the Islamist movement Hamas rules, estimates that of the 37,000 Palestinians who have died violently in this war, about 15,000 were children. The UN has identified almost 8,000 dead minors and warns that there are more than 10,000 unidentified victims or under the rubble.
According to Mustafa Al Masri, a Gazan psychiatrist specialized in trauma, who has worked as a consultant for various international organizations, “the children of Gaza, from the age of four or five, live in a permanent state of fear, they feel abandoned by the adults who already “They can’t protect them.” “They see the world as a very dangerous place,” he explains to this newspaper.
“My children can no longer concentrate on simple tasks. They immediately forget what I have told them and do not remember recent events either. They are psychologically destroyed, devastated,” explains Amal, a mother of four from the center of the Gaza Strip, who prefers not to give her full name. “Our children have already suffered several wars, so they lack resilience. They are full of fear, anger and constant tears, reflecting the anguish that we, adults, feel,” details Dalia, another displaced mother in the center of the Strip.
Children in Gaza, from the age of four or five, live in a permanent state of fear, feeling abandoned by adults who can no longer protect them.
Mustafa Al Masri, Palestinian psychiatrist
The minors who survive the Israeli attacks are overcrowded in displaced persons camps or UN shelters, have had to change shelter on several occasions, are malnourished and barely have clean water to drink or wash, which exposes them to numerous diseases. . Since the war began in October, they have witnessed horrific scenes and death, their own and that of their loved ones, is a real possibility every day.
“The children have witnessed everything and we cannot protect them. For example, my son knows how to identify by sound the type of explosive that has fallen near the place where we live. It is not normal,” says Waseem, displaced with his family in central Gaza.
Layers and layers of trauma
“Many of the children I have met recently in Gaza are expressionless, often staring into space. “They are sitting in the emergency room, watching in silence, while the scenes of horror unfold in front of them,” explains Doctors Without Borders (MSF) pediatrician Tanya Haj-Hasan. in a recent report by the NGO. “All child protection mechanisms have been destroyed,” adds this expert. And added to that, according to the doctor, many have to learn to live with a disability or an amputated limb. “There are several circles of loss and pain and it is, honestly, unbearable pain. “It will affect many children their entire lives,” she adds.
A study published by the NGO Save The Children in January estimated that an average of 10 children a day lost a limb at that time in Gaza. Since then, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated, but it is very difficult to continue compiling statistics in a Strip in ruins but bombed incessantly.
A recent report by the Qatari television network Al Jazeera, one of the few international media that has journalists inside the Strip, showed a child convalescing after the recent amputation of an arm. “He asks me if his arm is going to grow back, because he needs to have both to continue playing ball. And I don’t know what to answer him,” her mother said, tearful.
A study published by the NGO Save The Children in January estimated that an average of 10 children a day were losing a limb in Gaza at that time.
“Right now, Gaza is not a place for children. It is a space of death, destruction and disease. And it is certainly not a place where children can begin to recover from their immense mental scars,” says Elder, spokesperson for Unicef.
He Israeli blockade on the Strip, in force since 2007, the successive wars between Israel and the armed movements in the Strip and the suffocation felt when living in this small territory, where before October 7, 2023 there were very few possibilities for employment or leisure, have multiplied for a long time the mental problems of its inhabitants, especially the youngest, who are the majority of the population and have only known an isolated and miserable Gaza. “Children face layers and layers and layers of trauma. And they were already traumatized before October,” emphasizes Audrey McMahon, MSF psychiatrist.
A 2020 study published in the medical journal The Lancet concluded that the 53.5% of Gaza children suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome at that time. Two years later, an investigation by Save The Children showed the negative impact of the blockade and omnipresent violence on the mental health of Gaza minors.
“Before October 7, 2023, being born in Gaza was already being born without a future. Life was a kind of lottery because we had to face many limits and conditions that were beyond people’s control,” says Vicente Raimundo, director of International Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid of this NGO.
With the war, the situation has plummeted. There are children who begin to experience hallucinations and engage in conversations with deceased loved ones; Others self-harm to express their anguish and many have behaviors that arouse the anxiety of their parents, lists Gazan psychiatrist Al Masri. “A few days ago, my husband saw my five-year-old son Qusai from the street, standing on the roof of a nearby building and staring into space. We got very scared. I’m afraid of losing him. He is very strange, he only talks about the bombs and lives terrified by the noise of the planes,” explains his mother, from the center of Gaza. His other seven-year-old daughter has nightmares many nights and dreams that she is trapped in the rubble of the house and dies. “She screams, she wakes up and runs desperately through the house,” the woman describes.
Clowns against sadness
“Faced with this situation, our psychosocial support for children is insignificant and ineffective. It is impossible to schedule any type of activity with the kids due to access and security conditions and the fact that families are constantly moving. And also, above all, our main job now in Gaza is to save lives,” Raimundo admits.
“Many of the children I have met recently in Gaza are expressionless, often staring into space. “They are sitting in the emergency room, watching in silence, while scenes of horror unfold in front of them.”
Tanya Haj-Hasan, MSF
This expert recalls that one of the best examples that describe the dramatic situation of children in Gaza is the invention of the acronym WCNSF (Wounded child, no surviving family), in Spanish, coined since practically the beginning of the war in October. “This term reveals what we are experiencing. We have had to create a specific category because no living relative of a child can be found. This is something very rare in a conflict. Entire clans from Gaza have disappeared, they have been eradicated in a night of bombings,” he laments.
In a camp for displaced people in the south of the Strip, about twenty children watch, absorbed, two poorly made-up clowns dressed in four colorful rags who juggle with feigned clumsiness. The little ones, dirty, disheveled and almost all barefoot, laugh in unison. The orange light of the sunset beautifies this scene that, however, is surrounded by ruins, garbage, tents, death and sadness.
Mohammed Khader founded the Free Gaza Circus in 2018, convinced of its benefits for the mental well-being of children, in the midst of the overwhelming despair that permeated Gaza. Their modest facilities have been destroyed by bombs, but these volunteer clowns have tried to continue organizing shows in camps for displaced people and shelters, amid great risks and difficulties. “Under current circumstances, the weight of depression can become unbearable. The circus offers a ray of hope, a reason for children to smile, even if it’s just for a few minutes,” explains Khader.
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