Gaza News
Update from our partner, the Gaza Community Health Program – 31 March 2024
Summary here
Draw Therapy Technique Helps Children Tell of What Goes In Their Minds
My name is M.A. I am 11, but I am scared of the war. We are going to die all. In Gaza we don’t grow up. My 2 brothers died. I just wanted to see them off before burial. But, I couldn’t. I dew the hospital beds they lied in. The beds are empty, because they no longer there. They have gone.
Humanity in Gaza
Panelists explore Gaza’s cycles of trauma, recovery, and re-traumatization
Panelists:
- Samah Jabr: Head of the Mental Health Unit within the Palestinian Ministry of Health; founding member, Palestine-Global Mental Health Network
- Ahmed Alnaouq: Palestinian journalist; co-founder of We Are Not Numbers
- Steve Sosebee: Founder and President, Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund
- Alice Rothchild (moderator): Author, filmmaker, and Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School (Ret’d); founder, Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council
Health Consequences of War in Gaza – 11/19/23
Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council Webinar
Cosponsored by the Gaza Mental Health Foundation and supported by Grassroots International
Speakers:
- Dr. Alice Rothchild is a retired ob-gyn, author and filmmaker who last visited Gaza in August 2023 as part of a delegation focused on human rights
- Dr. Othman Mohammed is a child psychiatrist, born and raised as a refugee in Lebanon, currently Assistant Professor of Psychiatry with UMASS Chan Med School-Baystate
A Voice From Gaza
Please note that the following videos from Dr Yasser Abu-Jamei were recorded and are already outdated given the severity of the war.
Summary of message – 25 November 2023
Live recording with the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) – 17 November 2023
Late October
“The level of intervention that is needed is really massive. Our intervention is extremely needed,“
says Dr Yasser Abu Jamei, Director General of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP)
speaking from Khan Younis on a phone charged by solar panels.
“We have dozens of children who are the sole survivor in their family.” Video
Video: How is Israel’s Bombardment of Gaza Impacting the Work of GCMHP and its Staff?
Video: What Does GCMHP Need From the International Community?
Blockade, Bombings, and Continuing Trauma: Assessing Mental Health in Gaza
World Bank: Over half of Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza suffer from depression
“Conflict and unemployment are heavily impacting mental health, organization says; calls for a ‘holistic’ solution.” – The Times of Israel, 16 July 2023
‘We tell them they can still laugh’ – the doctor treating the mental scars of Gaza’s children
Read the full article in The Observer
Yasser Abu Jamei: ‘We try to bring colour into their lives.’ Photograph: Sonja Horsman/The Observer
Military violence everywhere takes a heavy toll on children and its impact can be long lasting. During his recent US tour, Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei, the head of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, repeatedly stressed that trauma for Palestinian children is never ‘post’ but is triggered anew by Israel’s occasional missile strikes and the constant buzzing of drones flying overhead. Years following a major military attack, mental health professionals have discovered that the trauma experienced by Gaza’s children is “relentlessly ongoing and reactivated.”
Screen grab from “Child Trauma in Gaza” video
Child Trauma In Gaza (Video link)
Four out of five children in the Gaza Strip suffer from depression, sadness and fear caused by fifteen years of the Israeli blockade on the territory Report by Save the Children
Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh February 8, 2022
100% of your donation supports mental health efforts in Gaza. Please Donate
Photo by Eman Mohammad. Used with permission.