Gaza, a city once filled with laughter of young and cheerful children, has now been silenced except for bombs and gunshots. Gaza is a city that is in Southwestern Palestine. Israel and Palestine share a bloody history filled with hatred that dates to 1948. The most recent war broke out on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian military group Hamas surprise attacked Israel near the Gaza Strip. 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 people were taken to Gaza as hostages.
In the middle of all this violent and gruesome fighting, there are young children whose childhood has been taken away due to the constant threat of War and unsafety. A study conducted in Gaza by the nonprofit organization, “Save The Children” found that 80% of children from the study show symptoms of emotional distress. Due to the constant threat of an attack, the mental health of Gazan children has always been overlooked. Right now, with Gaza being a war zone filled with dangers and destruction, the mental health of these children who are living there has decreased drastically.
Many children in Gaza have poor mental health because of the traumatic events of the war. Jonathan Crickx, who is the UNICEF’s Chief of Communication for Palestinian territories, shared the following statistic in the article titled, “UN estimates 17,000 Gaza children left unaccompanied amid Israel’s war.” Crickx said the following in the article, “Children in Gaza Face Mental Health Crisis,” “Of 12 children I met or interviewed, more than half of them had lost a family member in this war. Three lost a parent, of which two lost their mother and father. Being separated from, or no longer having parents, is so hard for a child to deal with, especially during times of war, and it can cause someone’s mental health to take a dramatic decline”. Crickx also stated the heartbreaking statistic in the article, “…a million children in the Gaza Strip require mental health support.”
Iman Farajallah, who is now a psychologist in the US, recounts her experience living in Gaza when she was a child in the article,” How Mental Health Experts Are Handling the Israel-Hamas War Lasting Impact on Children.” Iman recalled, “The experience was so vicious, so scary, so harmful that there are no words that can describe it.” The children who are currently living in the war zone have had their key childhood memories ripped away from them, childhood memories that they can never get back. Iman Farajallah’s experience of the war shows just how dangerous it is for a child’s mental health to be living in Gaza.
The conspicuous decline in the mental health of children living in Gaza should be a sincere concern as it is ruining the lives of many young children whose childhoods have been stolen away from them. The youth of Gaza are going to need all the support they can get to help heal from these traumatic experiences.
