Since the war broke out a year ago, losing family and seeing loved ones killed is what children in Gaza face everyday. The children will carry what they have seen with them for the rest of their lives. Terre des hommes (Tdh) is calling again for an immediate ceasefire - and is providing psychological support for the children.
Since the outbreak of war a year ago, life in Gaza has been a daily nightmare: poverty, hunger, appalling hygiene conditions, disease. There is a lack of everything. “I have been displaced 10 times”, tells us one girl in refugee center. “I only eat one meal per day. And I have been getting sick, because sometimes the food we get has already gone bad.” For children like her daily life is surviving. Not to mention other vital needs of children that they are missing such as education, play and social interaction.
Watch the video interview of this young girl
Since the start of the war in Gaza, one year ago, Terre des hommes, the leading Swiss child rights organisation, has been focusing on the mental health of children in the war zone, because the war has psychosocial effects on a scale that we can only imagine. It not only affects the physical health of the people in Gaza, but also their mental health.
“Children in Gaza have lost family members, have seen their loved ones killed,” says Shadi Jaber, mental health and psychosocial support specialist for Tdh in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). “They have to deal with these images every day.” Added to this is the constant stress. “Gaza has been bombed every day for a year. There is never a moment of peace, never a moment when you can just sleep.” Any sense of security is robbed of its basis: “The children have fled their homes, and then again and again. They internalize that no place is ever safe.”
Too many children have been living in makeshift tent cities the past 12 months. Threads that hold the tents together are used to dry the washing around which the children play hide-and-seek. Others use them as volleyball nets to play a match. Everywhere, the destruction and suffering caused by the bombings are plain to see. As you walk between the tents, you can see the intense, disillusioned looks on the faces of their occupants.
Children express their feelings differently than adults and process what they see differently. “And they feel their needs are not being met if adults don’t understand them”, says Jaber. Tdh, who has been active in Gaza for over 50 years, is committed to the wellbeing of children in Gaza. Now and until all their rights are respected.
Since march, Terre des hommes has managed to send one convoy of essential food and hygienic and medical products per month into Gaza to displaced communities. Its aim is to give back some dignity to the most vulnerable. But it also provides psychological support on the ground. This includes playing with the children, maintaining leisure activities and giving them a space to express their feelings. Since the beginning of the war Tdh reached about 50’000 people and 23’681children have benefited from its psychological first aid sessions.
Psychological first aid and participation in games allow children to open up and help them find relief by talking about their traumas. “It’s important for children to play, even during a war,” says Jaber. “So we provide children with material to draw, to sing, to play. It is their psychosocial way of expression.” Tdh also works with teenagers and young adults. Children like Mariam who used to have dreams and hopes. "I wanted to become an engineer” she tells us. “But since the start of this war, I've realised that I'll never be anything”. Jaber explains, how they engage with these young people: “We listen to their perspective and show them how they can change something in their communities. We enable them to take action and not lose hope.”
Terre des hommes also provides “psychological first aid” and awareness-raising activities for parents so that they can resolve conflicts within the family. After all, aggressivity is a normal reaction in a traumatic situation. “We try to connect parents with their feelings and give them tools to help them deal with their own and their children's stress”.
But that is not enough. Tdh has been present in the oPt since 1973 to provide aid and protection to crisis-affected and vulnerable children and families, but the current events in Gaza have proven to be horrifying beyond measure. Tdh emphasizes that the conflict must finally stop, demanding a lasting ceasefire and immediate access to support families. Another generation of Palestinian children will grow up scarred by the war, carrying with them psychological injuries that will affect their development and growth. This will greatly affect their lives as adults and rob them of their future.
Children should not be waiting in lines for food or water and hear bombing every moment of their lives. They deserve to play, to go to school, to live like other children in the world.
Available for interviews:
- Gaza staff (in English/Arabic)
- Palestine Country Representative (in English)
- MENA Regional Director (in French or English)