Traumatized Gaza children

The United Nations estimates at least 373,000 Palestinian children require direct and specialised psychosocial support. And based on the total number of adults killed, there may be up to 1,500 children orphaned. Gazan children's right to education has also been severely compromised, with at least 25 schools reportedly damaged so severely that they can no longer be used. The future of Palestinian children in Gaza is extraordinarily bleak.

"The entire population has experienced a deep form of trauma, and there isn't a single family in Gaza who hasn't experienced personally death, injury, the loss of their home. The psychological toll that has on a people, it just cannot be overestimated, and especially on children. I've met children who have experienced extraordinary wounds, who have watched as family members were dismembered before their eyes, obliterated." -- Pernille Ironside, chief of UNICEF's Gaza field office.

The Palestinians are broken by the violence they have been up against for so many years.

Ted Rudow III, MA
Palo Alto, CA, USA