What of the children?
In this post: 1) the psychological trauma for Gaza’s children; 2) Photos from The Independents’s story Plight of the children in Gaza, 3) War Child’s Gaza worker; 4) Al Jazeera, more trauma for the repeatedly bombed children of Gaza.
Relatives of the four boys killed on the beach of Gaza City, all from the Bakr family, cry at the morgue of the hospital in Gaza City, on July 16, 2014. Photo by Hosam Salem/NurPhoto
The Psychological Trauma of Catastrophe: Gaza’s Children
By Louisa Lamb, Common Dreams
August 10, 2014
Despite the on-again, off-again ceasefires between the Palestinian Resistance and Israel, attacks in Gaza have continued. According to [an August 10th] announcement from Tel Aviv, they will continue, doubtlessly as ruthless as ever. After Israel launched the first attack on July 7th, tension continues as an omnipresent essence whirling about the winds of the greatly sought-after Holy land. Bombarded by airstrikes, shelling and bombs, civilians of the Gaza strip are incarcerated in what seems to be a never-ending battle with no escape. Recent reports from numerous sources and journalists describe the weight of the devastation Palestinians have endured in Gaza.
Within the last ten years, Israel has provoked three offensive movements against the Palestinian territory in Gaza: Operation Cast Lead, which began at the end of 2008 and 2009, Operation Pillar of Defense, which last eight days in November 2012, and most recently, Operation Protective Edge, which started on July 7th, 2014. During this period of devastation, homes have been obliterated, nearly two thousands civilians have been killed, and humanitarian resources are extremely limited due to the Israeli blockade. Catastrophic damage has already been done, some irreparable and some of the most important consequences are often overlooked.
According to Dr. Jesse Ghannam, a clinical psychologist working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, … the rate of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among children has doubled since the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defence attack. These children will most likely suffer from mood disorders, anxiety, depression, problems with attachment and develop antisocial personality traits. Children of Gaza who are nine years old have spent whole lives experiencing the terror of ruthless violence.
The UN relief and works agency reported that approximately 270,000 Gazans are taking UN schools as shelters. The organization also calculates that more than 350,000 children need mental health services because of severe and persisting psychological trauma. How can children cope when they witness the loss of their homes and their entire families from a single explosion? These children are witnessing their mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbours being blown apart with no understanding of why.
Many Gazan children who have survived view life as an inescapable war. There are many psychological principles to consider when assessing the future of these children, psychosocial development being a prominent one. The UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recently stated that about 75% of teachers at primary and secondary levels reported a decline in their students’ academic performance since Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012. Furthermore, Operation Protective Edge has damaged 138 schools, including 89 run by the UNRWA.
IRIN, a UN Humanitarian news and information service, reported that the lack of locations to attend school and lack of education resources leaves students having to wait, prolonging their education with no guarantee of returning. Erica Silverman reported from the 2008-2009 attack that due to the trauma of these children and lack of psychological counseling resources, many are hesitant and anxious about even going to school. Six years later, with two more perennial offenses, these children of Gaza are overwrought. Iyad Zaqut, a psychiatrist managing the UN community mental health programs in the Gaza strip, reports fewer than 100 specialist teachers are treating more than 100,000 children.
The lack of schools, teachers, and school supplies make education for these children a fallacy. In addition to the scarcity of academic availability, many of these schools do not offer mental health services because of the abundance of children suffering from psychological trauma and limited mental health providers. As a result, these children are in dire need of aid which is unattainable. It’s important to consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when thinking about these children. These kids do not even have their basic safety and physiological needs met, which are basic human rights which many take for granted. They have nothing but memories of explosions and imprinted images of violence in their minds.
They live in a world they cannot change, that is cruel and violent. Their only solace is uttering the words “Inch’Allah” as they hide with their families and try to avoid the destruction surrounding them. Many of them don’t. Thousands of Palestinians are restricted from leaving Gaza Strip and are confined, condemned by the Israeli agenda with their fate already determined. How can children conceptualize this, what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamen Netanyahu has described as “complicated” yet “justified”?
Children are unable to understand the nature of this ongoing destruction. The children who have witnessed all three of the Israeli offenses are old enough to have reached Concrete Operations of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development. Even so, how can they begin to conceptualize such oppression being justifiable? They don’t. Instead, these children, who are completely traumatized, are taught that survival is retaliating against these forces. The innate human compassion that every single human is born with is drowned with the blood of their people, leaving these children as empty shells, with their only hope to survival becoming filled with hatred and violence to join an extremist organization, where they will become like their oppressors—ruthlessly inhuman and unaffected by bloodshed.
In addition to the trauma they experience from witnessing these horrors themselves, family tensions contribute to their psychological issues. It’s difficult for children to feel safe when their parents, older relatives and other adults are stressed. Children need reassurance from adults and a healthy and supportive environment. Their parents are also suffering and face their own worries, so these children of Gaza cannot even retrieve comfort from their family.
The children of Gaza, who may initially be socially withdrawn and reclusive, quiet yet scarred and suffering, are at grave risk of growing into killing machines with nothing but bitter resentment for Israel. The attacks on children in Gaza are only fueling the ongoing violence, because for these children the only option is to avenge their dead family members, their homes, their schools, and their lack of human resources. Essentially, these kids have never known a proper society and will undoubtedly return to a very barbaric nature because that is their only means of survival.
These children are unable to have normal lives and development—besides the psychological trauma and lack of resources—because their identity is not fostered in a normal, healthy way. One of the most notable theories of development comes from Erik Erikson, who developed the 8 stages of psychosocial development. The nine-year old survivors of the Israeli offenses in Gaza, for instance, would be in Erikson’s stage of Industry vs. Inferiority. This is a crucial stage of human development, but these children will not be able to surpass this stage and continue to develop in a healthy manner. The Industry, which we can compare to the Israeli militant forces, dominate over the Palestinians. The children of Gaza who have lost everything—while never really having anything—are robbed of their dignity and the right to a stable life and identity of self.
The Palestinian suffering and Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nothing new. This problem has been raging on, but it is important to ease the suffering of these children and provide resources to help them and help the world. There is a way to stop the cycle, with humanitarian efforts and discussion about what needs to be done. These children are innocent, and yet they are subjected to so much. It is a moral responsibility of the international community to provide assistance to alleviate the strife of these children and rebuild what is left of the home of the Palestinian people.
Louisa Lamb is an independent researcher and journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized. She can be reached c/o louisaalamb@gmail.com.
A Palestinian child screams in pain at the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip after she was hit by shrapnel during an Israeli military strike near her family house. Photo by Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
Relatives of Islamic Jihad militant Shaaban Al-Dahdouh, who was found under the rubble yesterday, cry during his funeral in Gaza City. Photo by Hatem Moussa
Children, wounded in an Israeli strike on a compound housing at a U.N. school in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, cry at the emergency room of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya. Photo by Lefteris Pitarakis / AP
Children leave their neighbourhood for a safer location as Israel’s army continues shelling the area of Khan Younis. Photo by Said Khatib.
Jamal works for War Child in Gaza. At the moment the situation is too dangerous to run our psychosocial support programmes for children. Children and families in Gaza try to be safe. Jamal and his family are staying home to hide from the attacks. He shared this blog with us on July 17th 2014.
18 July 2014
I keep writing to my friends or colleagues who ask me about the situation and how we are doing, and I tell them that we are physically safe so far but it’s really difficult. Waiting and waiting, all the news and sounds of bombing, all the pictures of death and bombardments … it’s too frustrating and frightening. Children are getting angry at the continuous aggression and they feel very nervous and stressed. And that’s only for those hundreds of thousands of children and families, who are still safe! What is it like for those who lost their families or children, or lost their homes and have been displaced?
On top of it, it’s Ramadan time, it’s summer, there is no electricity most of the time, nights are long and scary. The children start to hate night and darkness more than ever as most of bombing happens after midnight…
Head out of the window
Today, they announced a humanitarian cease fire for 5 hours. It was a chance to go and buy some groceries and visit some places to have a look at what’s been destroyed. My daughter, 13 years old, insisted on joining me. We went by car and I realized that she put her head out of the window! She never did this, I asked: “what are you doing? Why?” She said: “I want to breathe as much as possible, to take as much oxygen as I can.” She looked happy and as if she was traveling for the first time in her life to a new country for a vacation. “I miss the street, seeing people and feeling alive” she said. I stopped the car and we started to talk:
“To be imprisoned at home and tied to one location for more than 10 days, to be away from your bed, to fall sleep after sun rise each day, to lose all your daily habits and activities, not to be able to read, play music or to relax or even to take shower even though it’s hot, with no electricity, and in the middle of Ramadan, isn’t it too much for us? Isn’t what happened enough? Until when, and then what? And, why?”
Fear and anxiety
Our dialogue continued and she spoke about the moments of fear and anxiety she is living with each bomb that explodes, day or night, but especially at night when it’s dark. She tells me about her acting as if she is strong, in order to avoid making the atmosphere worse, or further affect her brother (18 years old), who refused to go with us because he doesn’t trust the ceasefire, since he remembers attacks during a ceasefire in the last aggression, one and half year ago—but all the while, he himself kept saying these last days “I miss the street.”
We came back home at three o’clock, the ceasefire was ending and attacks started again, another 3 children were killed and later even more. This led us to discuss during Iftar time (Ramadan dinner) about the children that were killed at the beach yesterday: was it carelessness from them or their families to let them play outside with this situation? Or it was their right to play as they should be out of this violence?
What do you think?
Jamal, July 17th 2014
Palestinian children weep at the funeral for their loved ones in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip (15 July 2014). Photo by UNICEF/El Baba
Gaza bombardment further traumatizes children suffering from PTSD
Children’s rights group says mental health of young Palestinians being jeopardized by airstrikes
By Renee Lewis and Mohammed Omer, America Al Jazeera
July 9, 2014
The traumatization of young people in Gaza looks set to become a lingering wound of the latest Israeli airstrikes, adding to the burden of mental-health experts whose work to heal child PTSD sufferers in the territory has, yet again, been set back by renewed shelling.
The latest wave of bombardments has made it impossible for child psychologists to finish the delicate task of rebuilding the mental health of kids suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from previous waves of conflict, according to a children’s rights group on the ground.
Meanwhile, parents report renewed signs of anxiety and stress among the young. Umm Fadi’s daughters have begun wetting their beds at night. It is a common phenomenon during the past offensives.
“Now trauma is living in us again. Even closing the door of the fridge can scare my daughters,” Umm Fadi, who lives in Tal al-Sultan, told Al Jazeera.
Osama Damo, communications senior manager for Save the Children, said children are likely to face a lot of disorders at sleeping times, “because military operations often take place during the night.”
“The fear that they will be left with is unmanageable for children,” he told Al Jazeera from Gaza.
Moreover, the shelling could go some way to undoing the painstaking work done by health workers and psychologists to help children recover psychologically from past Israeli offenses in Gaza in 2008-2009 and 2012. Hundreds of children were killed as a result of those military operations.
After the 2012 war, the PTSD rate among children in Gaza doubled, according to the United Nation’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
“The main thing we’re facing in Gaza is that many organizations haven’t finished their work yet with children affected in the last attacks, and here we go with a new offensive,” Damo said.
Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with a population of about 1.7 million people in an area that is 139 square miles. Israel accuses Hamas of operating out of civilian areas, and will often attack civilian infrastructure because of that.
The impact of bombings on civilians has again been an issue with Operation Protective Edge — the Israeli military offensive launched after the deaths of three kidnapped Israeli teens late last month. Its air force and navy have launched over 500 strikes on Gaza, killing at least 72 Palestinians, including several children, and injuring hundreds. Israel’s leadership has said the operation will not be short, and has even hinted at a ground invasion into Gaza as Hamas continues to retaliate by firing rockets into Israel.
Psychological problems resulting from conflict usually manifest in children after the military operation has concluded, with symptoms of PTSD, sleeping disorders, and behavioral issues, according to Damo.
He added that there are organizations working in Gaza to provide safe places for children during raids.
But the type of offensive being launched often leaves no possibility of providing an entirely safe haven. Both children and adults can feel helpless as a result.
Umm Fadi, who has three daughters and one son, said she has tried to comfort her children, but her nine-year-old, Raghd, still cries all night as Israeli air strikes shake the ground in Gaza.
“It’s hard to explain politics to children — they hear from other neighborhood children that it’s Israel bombing Gaza again, but still I can’t give them an answer as to why,” she said, adding: “I am afraid myself, and my children come to hide in my bedroom. How can I possible show them I am not afraid.”
Save the Children is calling on all parties to agree to a ceasefire so that vital services can be provided to the children of Gaza.
Damo said counseling sessions will be offered for children after the Israeli assault finishes. Meanwhile, various organizations will work with families to teach them how to help children cope with traumatic situations.
But for many, traumatic situations have become a hazard of living in Gaza.
“Trauma is a term which they have used in the West when they were talking about normal situations and there is a breakdown. This breakdown is the trauma, but for us Palestinians, trauma is the daily life,” said Palestinian doctor Ahmed Abu Tawahinah.
He added: “The term trauma itself is not enough to describe what is going on in Gaza. I am not convinced we expressed the horror.”
With additional reporting by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours
The UN has said Israel’s nearly month-long offensive against Hamas has had a ‘catastrophic and tragic impact’ on children in the area.
By Rob Williams, The Independent 06 August 2014
August 06, 2014
The UN, Unicef and others have already reported on the dire impact the conflict between Israel and Hamas has had on the children of Gaza.