The head of a charity in the strip helping people traumatised by the conflict explains why he still has hope for the future
Emma Graham-Harrison
Sun 4 Jun 2023
Dr Yasser Abu Jamei is an unlikely optimist, a psychiatrist running the biggest mental health charity in Gaza, where four out of five children live with depression, fear and grief.
The 365 sq km (140 sq mile) Palestinian enclave on the Mediterranean – a tiny strip of land regularly bombed, heavily blockaded and desperately poor – has provided a grim laboratory for testing how repeated trauma affects the human mind.
In Gaza, “people do not have means to recover and people are not given the space to recover,” said Abu Jamei. He is on the frontline of the largely invisible battle to protect and heal the population, as head of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP).
Last year it served more than 4,400 people, above its maximum official capacity, but still just a fraction of those who might need its help.
“Of course, this is not a reflection of the need in Gaza Strip,” said Abu Jamei, who relies on donations to fund the centre’s work.
“The WHO [World Health Organization] says that in areas of conflict 10% of the population will develop moderate to severe mental health illness,” he said. Gaza has a population of more than 2 million, suggesting hundreds of thousands are suffering or are at risk.
The nonprofit organisation supports the only psychotherapists and the only child psychiatrist in Gaza, as well as community outreach projects, including a sports programme for some of the most vulnerable children.
Part of its work, particularly the sport, aims to help traumatised children find a path back to something like normal life.
Their journey is where Abu Jamei finds hope and the inspiration to keep going. “We try to bring colour into their lives,” he said. “We tell children that you can still laugh, that you can still have fun, that you can still just exhale, you know, get rid of the negative emotions.
“Of course, you cannot erase the memories that you have, but at least you can add more memories that will let the previous ones, the sad ones, go.”
The pain Abu Jamei’s patients grapple with is one he knows intimately; few families in Gaza are untouched by violence. In 2014, an Israeli missile killed 28 members of his extended family as they sat down for an iftar to break their Ramadan fast.
Most people in Gaza are not able to leave their small homes after 15 years of an intensifying Israeli blockade; residents and human rights activists call it “an open-air prison”. There is nowhere to seek safety when Israel launches one of the military operations that have become a semi-regular feature of life since 2014. Israeli authorities say the military operations are necessary in self-defence, because Hamas targets Israeli citizens with rockets from the Gaza Strip.
“Given the small geographical area of Gaza Strip, and the high population density, almost all kids are exposed to trauma when attacks, large-scale operation military operations, happen,” Abu Jamei said.
Each operation compounds the traumas inflicted by previous attacks, and in recent years they have become more frequent. “It’s getting harder and harder with time, because the last three years, we had three consecutive attacks. In 2021, 2022, 2023.”
