Gehna Jadiri is 12 years old. Her sister says she hasn't laughed in weeks.
On December 28, as the world prepared to celebrate the arrival of the new year, Gehna and her three sisters had to flee to southern Gaza for shelter.
The Israel Defense Forces had warned residents to leave the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza. Nuseyrat is one of eight camps in the Gaza Strip that have been his permanent residence for many years.
The four sisters moved to a relative's house in southern Gaza, where the sounds of bombing constantly woke them from their sleep.
“She cries all the time now,” said her sister, Raja Jadiri.
At least 1.9 million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip, half of them children like Gena, as Israeli forces advance from northern Gaza to central and now southern Gaza.
Jonathan Crick, UNICEF spokesman in Jerusalem, said 1.2 million of the displaced people were staying in 155 facilities run by the UN relief and works agency. scroll In an email on January 4th.
Another 200,000 people have taken shelter in schools, wedding halls and hospitals, and thousands more are sleeping on the streets. Israel's attack on Gaza since October 7th has effectively finish schooling – At this point.
Harsh winters, lack of adequate medical care, water shortages and poor sanitation conditions expose newborns and children to infectious diseases in refugee camps.
But a bigger concern is the deteriorating mental health of displaced people and orphans.
Even before the military offensive on Gaza in 2022. investigation A study by the nonprofit organization Save the Children found that 80% of children in the Gaza Strip suffer from psychological distress as a result of the long-running conflict with Israel. More than half of those surveyed had considered suicide.
This number has increased significantly in the current crisis, said Bill van Esvelt, deputy director of children's rights at Human Rights Watch. scroll By phone in December.
“There are situations where not only the child's parents are killed, but the entire family,” Esveld said. “In some cases, children don't know their names or who their relatives are.”
He added that many organizations dedicated to supporting orphans no longer function in Gaza. “The problem is that the people who are in a position to help these orphans are themselves taking a hit,” he says.
Gehna's sister, Raja Jadiri, who works for a United Nations relief agency, helped her. scroll Reaching out to displaced children and mothers of newborns in refugee camps.
“The situation is dire,” she said. scroll By phone from southern Gaza. “People have moved from one shelter to another many times, first from the north to central Gaza and now to the south. After this, there is nowhere else to go.”
A team of South African lawyers filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice. genocide israelspoke of the devastating toll on children in Gaza at a public hearing in The Hague on January 11. A team of Israeli lawyers held a hearing on January 12th.
“There is no room for sadness.”
Toward the end of October, an Israeli airstrike killed the parents and five-year-old sister of toddler Janna Ismail Haboub and destroyed their home in Jabalia camp in northern Gaza. Her 20-month-old baby, Haboob, was found the next day in a pile of rubble near the roof of her neighbor's house. She survived despite sustaining multiple fractures.
The infant was admitted to Kamal Odwan Hospital for three days, where he was labeled an “injured child with no surviving family.” This is the label given to many injured orphans in the Gaza Strip whose entire families were killed in Israeli airstrikes. Bryn Ní GulalaiOne of South Africa's leading lawyers told the court that Israeli military attacks led to the coining of this “terrible new acronym”, WCNSF.
On the third day, Habbou's grandmother, Rehab Youssef Ibrahim Masoud, arrived at the hospital looking for her. Masoud took Habbou back to her hometown of Khan Yunis in south Gaza, but she had to vacate her home within days. They now live in classrooms at Rafah Preparatory Girls' School, which has been turned into a refugee camp.
“Schools are overcrowded,” Masoud said. “There is no room for sadness, no room for contemplation. Every day I wake up to the sounds of shelling and destruction.”
Haneen Afana, a social worker with the United Nations relief agency, said Gianna had been experiencing “excessive nervousness, tension and emotional outbursts” since moving to the refugee camp. “She always insists on accompanying her grandmother and seeks her comfort and safety in her grandmother's presence,” Afana said.
Like Janna, Afana said many children at the camp show signs of distress, such as involuntarily wetting themselves or becoming aggressive towards each other.
social worker scroll Those we spoke to said there was a growing need to provide counseling to displaced people and orphans, but food, water and shelter were the top priorities for those providing aid.
said Dr. Santosh Kumar, medical director of Project Hope, which runs clinics for displaced people in the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Deir al-Balah. scroll Until the end of December, four hospitals were functioning in the Gaza Strip. “Currently, only two in Rafah are functioning,” Kumar said. “They are focused on saving lives. Mental health is not everyone's priority.”
Project Hope has started a mental health program at the clinic, but has not been able to scale up its efforts, Kumar said. “There are other medical emergencies that are occurring,” he said. “Maternal and neonatal mortality rates are rising and there is no way to count or control them,” he said.
There is 50,000 people are pregnant More than 180 women give birth in Gaza every day, according to data from the United Nations children's agency. “Of these, 15% are likely to experience complications related to pregnancy or childbirth and require additional medical care,” UNICEF's Crick said. scroll. However, very few hospitals remain functional.
hungry and sick
On January 5, the United Nations children's agency stated: investigation It has been found that 96% of children under the age of two in Gaza suffer from severe food poverty. Families reported that their children were eating only milk and bread. This is leading to an increase in malnutrition.
Evacuation has also resulted in poor sanitary conditions and unclean drinking water, and children are forced to live in extremely crowded conditions with hundreds of people occupying rooms. Hundreds of people are forced to share toilets.
The World Health Organization has also observed an increase in cases of upper respiratory tract infections, diarrhea in children under five, lice and scabies, chickenpox, skin rashes, and acute jaundice syndrome.
Kumar said Gaza does not have the authority to maintain a chain of cold storage warehouses, making vaccination nearly impossible. “How do you store the vaccine?” he asked.
Adira Hashim, another lawyer representing South Africa, told the International Court of Justice that even UN leaders have described Gaza as a “children's graveyard”.
“Fearful children”
Two months ago, when Israel launched an offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, 20-year-old Alij Quader began the arduous journey from Gaza City in the north to Rafah in the south. Quader, who was seven months pregnant at the time, traveled with her one-year-old son, Hassan, and four-year-old daughter, Adora, and began living in a refugee camp. Her husband lives in Turkey for work.
When she felt contractions on December 21, UN relief agency workers took her to a nearby hospital to give birth. When she returned with her newborn, she found herself in a room shared by her 12 families of 40 women and children.
She and her newborn Siam have not been able to bathe since giving birth. “I couldn't find water to take a shower,” Quader said.
The biggest challenge is diapers and milk for the children. “Her son Hassan is always crying because he doesn't have milk,” she said. So far, she has been able to receive newborn vaccinations at a local clinic run by the United Nations relief agency.
Inas Hamdas, a spokesman for the UN relief agency in Gaza, said children were among the worst affected. “They are scared, depressed and frightened.”
Rajah Jadiri contributed reporting from Gaza.
