This is their reality, and it’s how the people we care for describe it. Their access to basic services and the outside world is extremely limited. Young adults in their 20s also lived through the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. Every new war destroys the fabric of Gazan society that bit more. It affects their families—their parents who struggle to survive, find work, get enough money to avoid sinking into poverty, survive the fighting—physically as well as emotionally.
This accumulation of traumatic events has long-term consequences for Gaza’s children and adolescents. A bomb that falls on Gaza City destroys not only a building but also an entire system that used to protect them. They don’t have a safety net anymore. For example, when schools close due to the fighting, children don’t have a safe space where they can interact and play together. There’s a domino effect. A depressed person is more likely to recover from their illness when they’re surrounded by people in good health.
In Gaza, the whole family structure is impacted by these brutal and recurrent events. It’s the same in the West Bank, although the situation is different there. For example, we provide care to children in Nablus in the north of the West Bank. They’re growing up in an occupied city and are aware they might be arrested, harassed, or abused.
