Bedwetting and nightmares: The mental toll of Israel-Hamas war on Palestinians in Gaza

DELILAH AL BALAR, Gaza Strip (AP) — Nabila Hamada gave birth to twin boys in the Gaza Strip in early 2015. warThe hospital stank of rotting corpses and was full of refugees. When Israeli forces threatened the hospital, she and her husband fled with only one of their babies; the other was too weak to be discharged, medical staff said. Soon after, Israeli forces raided the hospital She became the biggest boy in Gaza and never saw him again.

The trauma of losing one of her twins left Hamada, 40, so fearful of losing the other that she was frozen and ill-prepared to deal with the daily burden of survival.

“I can’t take care of the other older children or give them the love and affection they need,” she said.

She is one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggling mentally after nine months of war. The trauma is unrelenting. Family and friends have been killed, injured or disfigured in Israeli bombings. They have fled, huddled in homes and tents as fighting raged. Again and againThere is no safe place to recover.

Anxiety, fear, depression, sleep deprivation, anger and aggression are widespread, experts and specialists told The Associated Press, with children especially vulnerable as many parents struggle to maintain control.

There are few resources to help Palestinians come to terms with what they’re going through, and mental health experts say the sheer number of confused and traumatized people limits their ability to offer real help, so they’re offering a kind of “psychological first aid” to ease the worst symptoms.

“There are about 1.2 million children in need of mental health and psychosocial support, which basically means almost every child in Gaza,” said Ulrike Julia Wendt, emergency child protection coordinator for the International Rescue Committee, who has visited Gaza since the war began.

She said simple programs like playtime and art classes can make a difference. “The goal is to show kids that it’s not all bad stuff happening.”

Repeated displacement has compounded the trauma. An estimated 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes. Most of them Dirty tent camp They struggle to find food and water.

Many survivors of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel that sparked the Gaza war are traumatized. Searching for a cureMilitants have killed more than 1,200 Israelis and taken about 250 hostage.

Jehad El Hams, who had taken refuge near the southern city of Khan Younis, said he lost his right eye and the fingers on his right hand when he picked up what he thought was a can of food. It turned out to be an unexploded bomb that exploded, narrowly missing his children.

He has suffered from insomnia and disorientation ever since. “It brings me to tears every time I look at myself and see what I’ve become,” he says.

He enlisted the help of one of the few mental health efforts in Gaza, run by the United Nations agency that provides support to Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Fouad Hamad, UNRWA’s mental health supervisor, said he typically sees around 10 to 15 adults a day at the Khan Younis shelter, with problems including eating disorders, sleeping disorders and extreme anger.

Mahmoud Raihan saw his family torn apart – his young son and daughter died in Israeli attacks and his wife had one of her legs amputated. Now he lives alone in his tent, sleeping most of the day and barely speaking to anyone.

He said he didn’t know how to describe what was happening to him. He was shaking and sweating. “I’m crying and my heart is just heavy.”

His relative, Abdul Rahman Raihan, lost his father, two brothers and four cousins ​​in the airstrikes. Now, when he hears bombings he trembles, gets dizzy and his heart races. “I feel like I’m in a nightmare and I’m waiting for God to wake me up,” said Raihan, 20.

For children, the psychological damage caused by the war can have long-term effects on their development, said Wendt, adding that the stress, noise, crowding and constant change are causing children in Gaza to have nightmares and wet their beds.

Nashwa Nabil from Deir al-Balah said her three children – her eldest is 13 and the youngest is 10 – have no sense of security.

“The children can no longer hold their pee, they are chewing on our clothes, screaming and becoming verbally and physically aggressive,” she said. “My son Moataz hides in his tent when he hears the sounds of planes or tanks.”

In the central town of Deir al-Balah, the Al-Majed Association’s psychosocial team is working with dozens of children, teaching them how to cope with the realities of war and giving them a place to play.

“In case of attack, they will assume a fetal position and seek safety away from buildings and windows. We have prepared scenarios, but anything can happen in Gaza,” said project manager Georgette Al-Kateeb.

Even for those who have fled Gaza, the psychological toll remains heavy.

Mohamed Khalil, his wife and three children fled seven times before reaching Egypt. His wife and children arrived in January and he joined them in March. “We’re going to die,” their 8-year-old daughter said, hiding in a bathroom between artillery and gunfire.

The six-year-old was finally able to sleep after his mother told him that dying as a martyr was an opportunity to meet God and ask for fruits and vegetables unavailable in hunger-stricken Gaza.

Khalil recalled the terror he felt as he fled on foot through a designated “safety corridor” with Israeli gunfire roaring nearby.

Khalil said the children remain withdrawn and scared after arriving in Egypt.

They are enrolled in Cairo’s new initiative, Psychological and Academic Services for Palestinians, which offers art and play therapy sessions, as well as math, language and physical education classes.

“We felt that these children, who have seen more horror than any of us, needed help,” said Rima Barche, the center’s founder and psychologist.

She recalled that on a recent field trip, a pair of playing 5-year-old twins from Gaza suddenly froze when they heard the sound of a helicopter.

“Is this an Israeli fighter jet?” they asked. She explained that it was an Egyptian aircraft.

“So, do the Egyptians like us?” they asked. “Yes,” she reassured them. They had left Gaza, but Gaza had not left them.

There is hope that children traumatized by war can recover, but there is still a long way to go, Barche said.

“I wouldn’t say ‘recovery,’ but there are certainly signs that they are beginning to heal. They may never fully recover from the trauma they suffered, but we are currently working to process their loss and their grief,” she said. “It’s a long process.”

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Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Kareem Shehaieb in Beirut contributed to this report.

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