A Youth-PTSD Catastrophe Is Brewing in Gaza

22 July 2014

 - At the moment, the world’s attention is naturally focused on the most camera-friendly elements of the Israel-Hamas conflict: the explosions and the refugees and the many civilian casualties. But simmering beneath the fighting is a longer-term problem for Gazans: They are one of the youngest, most frequently traumatized people on Earth. The psychological effects of the repeated battering they have endured in recent years could linger for decades, posing a huge challenge not just to Gazans themselves but to Israelis, Egyptians, and everyone else concerned with peace in the region.

It will be impossible to know the full extent of the problem until after the end of the fighting, but past research paints a grim picture. A 2004 study conducted during the second intifada found that 32.7 percent of Gazan children between 10 and 19 exhibited signs of severe post-traumatic stress disorder, while 49.2 percent showed signs of moderate PTSD. A full 83.2 percent of all the children sampled had witnessed shooting, while 66.9 percent had seen injured or dead victims of the violence — and that was several rounds of violence ago.