2023-10-17 08:47:15
In Gaza hospitals, many children They share a bed. Some are silent, others tremble, many shout, they cry and their tears draw a path on the dust that covers their faces. Some of them will join the tragic number of murdered people that, for now, on the tenth day of the war, stands at 1,030 children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Barely weeks old or already entering puberty, children in the Strip live from birth one childhood marked by war and the blockade. Now, in this Palestinian enclave where the 47% of the population are minorsthere is also no safe place for all of them to grow up safe and sound.
“If I have to send a message to the world about what is happening in Gaza right now, I would tell them that hundreds of children one day they dreamed of growing up and become doctors, teachers, soccer players or good citizens to help build their community were murdered in cold blood by warplane attacks against their civilian homes,” denounces the English teacher, Samirof the organization Hands Up Project. This father of a family Rafah, in the south of the Strip, speaks forcefully and without his voice breaking in one of those moments when his phone has a connection and battery in the besieged enclave. “Tell them that I have three little daughters that they can’t sleep a wink either day or night,” he asks El Periódico, from Prensa Ibérica, by voice message.
Diana El Hadidi He has a two-year-old son. “He doesn’t understand anything, he just follows scared often by the sounds of bombs,” explains draining the last 6% of battery that remains on your phone. “Children over five years old can understand what is happening, but they are not able to stay calm, they are terrified, and parents “They can’t control their feelings,” this Palestinian-Russian translator laments to this newspaper. “The children just keep crying,” she notes. Although the citizens of the Gaza Strip are accustomed to Israeli offensives, nothing could have prepared them for this one. In just one week, Israel had already devastated more lives than in the two months which lasted its last operation in 2014.
Mental health
90% of minors in Gaza suffer post-traumatic stress disorderaccording to a study by Save The Children carried out after the last offensive in 2021. Suffering is part of the childhood of these children who, since their birth, have lived under the partial Israeli blockade, poverty and violence. The doctor Iman Farajallah has studied the impact of war on Palestinian children and has discovered that most of the wounds of the conflict are not physical. Many Gazan children end up paying dearly psychological, emotional or behavioral price by surviving under bombs. His research discovered that the 95% of children from the Gaza Strip showed symptoms of anxiety, depression y trauma.
Amid the chaos and pain of the deadliest offensive on the Gaza Strip, organizations like the Palestine Red Crescent Society have begun working with displaced families affected by the bombings to treat their mental health. Many of these children, still too young to be conscious, end up inheriting trauma and fear of their elders. According to experts, this transgenerational trauma is expressed in different ways, whether with signs of lack of interest in everyday life, with antisocial behavior, with signs of restlessness, regression or even violent attitudes. These children will one day become adults and all that pain may just translate into revenge.
“If my children have no hope for their future, I can’t guarantee the path they will take.“, he denounces Said Abu Shammalaexecutive director of the General Union of Cultural Centers in Gaza, from the Khan Yunis refugee camp, in a column of The New York Times. “Many of the young fighters who crossed those walls They were born during the second Intifada. His entire experience has been israeli military occupation, siege and devastating military attack after assault in a 140 square mile enclave, with unemployment and poverty rates of approximately 50%. This is the history and these are the conditions that have shaped so many people in Gaza, not a justification. Israel helped create these combatants, depriving them of hope, dignity and a future,” he states.
But today, few families in the Gaza Strip have time to think about tomorrow. Your only goal is to survive. They don’t even have a moment to bury the 2.329 personas who have already been murdered. “We can’t explain to them what is happening in real life, we just try to tell them that everything will be fine,” Habibi explains. “We tell them that It’s just balloon sounds and that it will end as soon as possible, but I don’t know, in the end they are children,” she admits resignedly. “My little daughters now only have one question: What would happen to their bodies if they were murdered? Would their limbs be destroyed? Would they put them in a coffin? Would there be people left to bury them?“Samir says harshly.
The situation is catastrophic and it becomes worse by the moment. “There are many newly born who lost their families in hospitals and have no one to take care of them,” denounces Habibi. “Our children are terrified, they are shocked, they get sick quickly, they don’t sleep at night. Those innocent little humans, what is your fault in living this life? “This is very unfair,” he adds. As the bombs continue to fall, Samir insists on speaking to the world, although “when my words arrive we might be all dead“. “Tell them that we, fathers and mothers, we die a hundred times a day for not being able to help and protect our little children,” he implores from the Gaza Strip.
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