The international charity organization Save the Children has waned that the Palestinian children in the besieged Gaza Strip have suffered from complete psychological destruction.
In a report released on Monday, the organization said before October 7, 2023, children in Gaza were already living with exceptionally poor mental health due to the 16 years of a blockade, lack of freedom of movement, various Israeli escalations on the territory, economic collapse, and separation from family and friends.
But five months of relentless attacks, displacement, starvation and disease on top of the years-long siege have caused relentless mental harm to children in Gaza, it said.
Without urgent action, Israel’s campaign will inflict further lifelong detrimental mental harm to the Palestinian children, with rapidly shrinking opportunities to recover, the report said.
Jason Lee, Save the Children’s Country Director for the occupied Palestinian territories, also sounded a strong alarm about sufferings being exacted on children in the Gaza Strip.
“It is unacceptable that any child should contend with the horrors that those in Gaza have lived through,” Lee said.
“While dodging bombs and bullets, fleeing through streets littered with debris and corpses, being forced to sleep in the open air and going without the basic food and clean water they need to survive, children in Gaza are going through a period of mass-scale shock and grief.”
“This war and the physical and mental scars it is leaving on children is further eroding their resilience.”
Lee made the remarks while explaining about the dire humanitarian situation across Gaza.
The Israeli hostilities in Gaza are having a catastrophic impact on children and families. Children are dying at an alarming rate – thousands have been killed and thousands more injured.
Around 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip are estimated to have been internally displaced – half of them children.
Parents in Gaza say their children have given up on their hopes or ambitions for the future.
Dalia, a mother in the besieged strip, said, “Our children have already lived through different wars. They already lacked resilience and now it’s very difficult to cope. The children are scared, angry and can’t stop crying. Even many adults do the same. This is too much for adults to cope with, let alone children.”
Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza has left many children in desperate need of psychological support, with about half of its population under the age of 18 and showing signs of deep trauma.
The death toll from Israel’s genocidal war stands at nearly 31,200, most of them women and children.
