Children in Gaza are developing severe trauma systems alongside the risk of death and injury, The Guardian reports quoting a Palestinian psychiatrist.
The psychological impact of the war on children was showing, said Fadel Abu Heen, a psychiatrist in Gaza. Children had “started to develop serious trauma symptoms such as convulsions, bed-wetting, fear, aggressive behaviour, nervousness, and not leaving their parents’ sides.”
The “lack of any safe place has created a general sense of fear and horror among the entire population and children are most impacted,” he was quoted as saying by The Guardian report with contributions from Reuters.
“Some of them reacted directly and expressed their fears. Although they may need immediate intervention, they may be in a better state than the other kids who kept the horror and trauma inside them.”
Tahreer Tabash, a mother of six children sheltering in a school, according to The Guardian, said: “Our children suffer a lot at night. They cry all night, they pee themselves without meaning to.”
In Gaza, a child aged 15 has experienced five periods of intense bombardment in their life: 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021 and now 2023.
Studies conducted after earlier conflicts have shown a majority of children in Gaza exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the report noted.
A report last year by Save the Children on the impact of 15 years of blockade and repeated conflicts on the mental health of children in Gaza found their psycho-social wellbeing had “declined dramatically to alarming levels”.
Children that the aid agency interviewed “spoke of fear, nervousness, anxiety, stress and anger, and listed family problems, violence, death, nightmares, poverty, war and the occupation, including the blockade, as the things they liked least in their lives”.
The report quoted António Guterres, the secretary-general of the UN, describing the lives of children in Gaza as “hell on earth”.
Israeli children have also shown increasing signs of trauma since October 7, according to Zachi Grossman, chair of the Israeli Paediatric Association. “We’re witnessing a tsunami of anxiety symptoms among children” and the issue was “not being adequately addressed”, he told Ynet, an Israeli news website.
“Around 90% of children visiting paediatric hospitals complain of anxiety. Many are suffering from anxiety, and it’s certainly something we haven’t seen in the past. The recognition is beginning to dawn that this issue will be much more prolonged than before.”
On Sunday, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 1,750 children had been killed in the 16 days of bombardment by Israeli forces following Hamas’s murderous onslaught on 7 October. That is an average of almost 110 children a day. Thousands more have been injured, the report said.
About half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are children. Since October 7, they have lived under near constant bombardment with many packed into temporary shelters in UN-run schools after fleeing their homes with little access to food or clean water.