Children of Gaza...about the psychological trauma caused by the Israeli aggression

After the occupation declared a new war on Gaza. Since it began on October 7, it has launched continuous raids and bombardments that have claimed the lives of more than 700 children as of the moment you read this article, out of the total number of victims. But this report today does not talk about these child martyrs, but rather about the living victims among them. In this article, we address the psychological trauma and impact that war has on children, specifically the children of Gaza, and we present testimonies and studies of what it means for a child to witness, at an early age, not one war, but rather successive wars that take away his childhood, his innocence, and, in many cases, his life.

Two years ago, the 2021 aggression launched by the occupation against the Gaza Strip witnessed the martyrdom of sixty children. News that may seem at first glance to not contain any more painful details, but the Norwegian Refugee Council later stated that twelve of these sixty children were receiving psychological treatment provided by the Council, which helped them deal with the traumas of previous wars. The news ends here[1]. This aggression is not the first of its kind against Gaza. For more than 20 years to date, it has witnessed five wars, interrupted only by attempts to recover from the previous war, and an uninterrupted fear of a subsequent war, and continuous escalations between them from time to time. A normal day in the lives of children in the Gaza Strip is now devoid of smoke, explosions, and the destruction of homes and civilian facilities. As for the quiet days, they are exceptional days.