“Save the Children” organization warns that 80% of the children of the Gaza Strip suffer from psychological distress, and that “their mental health is deteriorating”, 15 years following the siege of the Israeli occupation of the Strip.
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After 15 years of the occupation’s siege on Gaza, 80% of Gaza’s children suffer from psychological distress
The non-governmental organization “Save the Children” warned in a report published today, Wednesday, that 80% of the children of the Gaza Strip suffer from psychological distress, on the 15th anniversary of the start of the Israeli occupation siege on the Strip.
“The mental health of Gaza’s children is deteriorating,” the organization said in a report entitled “Tressed”.
“The children we spoke to during the preparation of this report described their feelings as a constant state of fear, anxiety and sadness,” said Jason Lee, the organization’s director in the Palestinian territories.
According to the director of the organization, they also suffer from “the inability to sleep and focus, and they are waiting for a new round of violence,” referring to “physical evidence of their plight, such as involuntary urination and loss of the ability to speak or complete basic tasks.”
He told me that this evidence “was shocking and should serve as a wake-up call for the international community,” noting that “children constitute nearly half of the population of the Gaza Strip, and that 800,000 young people in the Strip have not experienced life without the siege.”
The Israeli occupation has imposed a strict land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007. Since 2018, the number of Gazan children who complain of symptoms of “depression, sadness and fear” has increased from 55 percent to 80 percent, according to the report.
The Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal strip inhabited by 2.3 million Palestinians, has fought four bloody wars with the Israeli occupation since 2008, the last of which was in May last year and lasted 11 days.
