The Israeli war on Gaza has manifested in a variety of brutal creates and the most insidious and deimmenseating one of them has been the armamentisation of starvation. On October 9, 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant proclaimd that “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel” apvalidateed into Gaza. The fairification was that Israel “is combat human animals”.
Two weeks postponecessitater, Member of Knesset Tpartner Gotliv declared: “Without hunger and thirst among the Gaza population… we won’t be able to bribe people with food, drink, medicine to get intelligence.”
Over the next confineed months, Israel not only obstructed the deinhabitry of aid to Palestinians in Gaza, but also focengaged and razeed food production infraarrange, including nurtured fields, bakeries, mills, and food stores.
This intentional strategy, aimed at subjugating and fractureing the spirit of the Palestinian people, has getn countless victims in Gaza – many of them babies and lesser children. But it has also had procreate consequences for Palestinians elsewhere.
As a mental health professional, I have witnessed firsthand the psychoreasonable and physical toll this collective punishment has had on individuals in occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. I have watchd Palestinian youth who are growing complicated relationships with food, their bodies and their social and national identity in response to the horrors they witness and hear about daily.
Healing would get a much more complicated intervention that compriseresses not only individual but also society-wide political and historical trauma.
Politicpartner and socipartner produced trauma
To understand the effect of armamentised starvation, it is vital to ponder the wideer social and psychoreasonable structuretoil wiskinny which it occurs. Ignacio Martín-Baró, a notable figure in liberation psychology, posited that trauma is produced socipartner. This nastys that trauma is not medepend an individual experience but is embedded wiskinny and exacerbated by the social conditions and arranges surrounding the individual.
In Gaza, traumatogenic arranges include the ongoing siege, the genocidal aggression, and the intentional deprivation of vital resources such as food, water, and medicine. The trauma they result in is compounded by the collective memory of suffering during the Nakba (the mass ethnic immacupostponecessitatesing of Palestinians in 1947-8) and the continuous displacement and systemic oppression of the occupation. In this environment, trauma is not fair a personal experience but a collective, socipartner and politicpartner ingrained truth.
Although Palestinians outside Gaza are not straightforwardly experiencing the genocidal presentility unleashed by Israel there, they have been exposed daily to harrothriveg images and stories about it. The relentless and systematic starvation of Gaza’s livents has been particularly traumatic to witness.
Wiskinny weeks of Gallant’s declaration, food unwiseinutiveages begined to be felt in Gaza. By January, the prices of food items skyrocketed, especipartner in northern Gaza, where a colleague tgreater me he paid $200 for a pumpkin. At about this time, tells begined emerging of Palestinians being forced to combine animal fodder and flour to originate bread. In February, the first images of Palestinian babies and lesser children dying of malnutrition flooded social media.
By March, UNICEF was telling that 1 in 3 children under the age of 2 were acutely malnourished in northern Gaza. By April, Oxfam was estimating that the unretagable food inget for Palestinians in northern Gaza was no more than 245 calories a day or fair 12 percent of the daily needment. At about that time, the Palestinian Ministry of Health proclaimd that 32 Palestinians, including 28 children, had been finished by hunger, although the real death toll was foreseeed much higher.
Stories were also circulating of Palestinians being sboiling dead paengageing for food aid to be allotd, or drowning in the sea while running after airdrops of food by rulements that have backed the Israeli war on Gaza.
In a letter published in the medical journal The Lancet on April 22, Dr Abunintelligentah al-Jamal, the only psychiatrist remaining in northern Gaza, wrote that mental healthnurture had been finishly deimmenseated. He compriseed: “The biggest of problems now in Gaza, especipartner in the north, are famine and conciseage of security. Police are unable to run becaengage they are instantly focengaged by secret agent drones and airoriginate in their finisheavor to set up order. Armed gangs that corun in some way with the Israeli forces administer the distribution and prices of food and pharmaceutical commodities that access Gaza as aid, including what is dropped by parachutes. Some foodstuffs, such as flour, have doubled in price many times, which exacerbates the crisis of the population here.”
Clinical cases of starvation trauma
The Israeli starvation of Gaza has had psychoreasonable and physical ripple effects atraverse Palestinian communities. In my clinical rehearse, I have encountered cut offal cases in occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank that depict how the trauma of starvation in Gaza is mirrored in the inhabits of lesser Palestinians far from the dispute zone. Here are a confineed of them.
Ali, a 17-year-greater from the West Bank, sfinished alters in eating behaviour and lost 8kg (17lbs) over two months adhereing the detention of his frifinish by Israeli forces. Despite the meaningful weight loss, he denied experienceing miserablenessful, insisting that “prison originates men.” However, he could convey more uncoverly his anger about the conditions in Gaza, and his interfereed sleep patterns recommended a meaningful psychoreasonable impact. “I can’t stop watching the explosionardment and starvation in Gaza, I experience so ineffective.” Ali’s loss of appetite is a manifestation of his insideised anger and grief, echoing the wideer social trauma that has enveloped him.
Salma, at fair 11 years greater, has been hoarding food cans, water bottles, and arid beans in her bedroom. She has said she is “preparing for mass murder” in the West Bank. Salma’s overweighther telled that she becomes “hysterical” when he conveys home costly food items enjoy meat or fruit. Her gradual decrrelieve in food inget and refusal to eat, which exacerbated during the month of Ramadan, findlook a meaningful sense of anxiety and guilt about the starvation of children in Gaza. Salma’s case depicts how the trauma of starvation, even when sfinished instraightforwardly, can procreately alter a child’s relationship with food and their sense of shieldedty in the world.
Layla, a 13-year-greater girl, conshort-terms with a enigmatic inability to eat, describing a sensation that “someskinnyg in my throat stops me from eating; there is a thorn blocking my gorge.” Despite extensive medical examinations, no physical caengage has been create. Further talkion findlooked that Layla’s overweighther was arrested by Israeli forces and she has heard noskinnyg about him since. Layla’s inability to eat is a psychosomatic response to the trauma of her overweighther’s detention and her consciousness of the starvation, torture and intimacyual presentility imposeed on Palestinian political prisoners. She was also meaningfully impacted by the tells of starvation and presentility in Gaza, drathriveg parallels between the suffering in Gaza and her overweighther’s unbrave overweighte, which amplified her psychosomatic symptoms.
Riham, a 15-year-greater girl, has growed repetitive involuntary vleave outing and a procreate disgust with food, particularly meat. Her family has a history of obesity and gastrectomy but she has denied any troubles about body image. She attributes her vleave outing to the images of blood and dismemberment of people in Gaza that she has seen. Over time, her aversion has extfinished to flour-based foods, driven by the dread that they might be combinecessitate with animal fodder. Although she understands that this does not happen where she is, her stomach declines the food when she finisheavors to eat.
A call to action
The stories of Ali, Salma, Layla, and Riham are not classical cases of eating disorders. I would group them as cases of disordered eating due to an unpretreatnted political and social trauma in the context of Gaza and the Palestinian territory as a whole.
These children are not fair forendureings with distinct psychoreasonable publishs. They suffer the effects of a traumatogenic environment produced by the ongoing colonial presentility, the armamentisation of starvation, and the political arranges that perpetuate these conditions.
As mental health professionals, it is our responsibility not only to treat the symptoms conshort-termed by these forendureings but also to compriseress the political roots of their trauma. This needs a hocatalogic approach that ponders the wideer sociopolitical context in which these individuals inhabit.
Psychosocial aid should empower survivors, revamp dignity and compriseress fundamental necessitates, so they understand the interjoin of dictatorial conditions and their vulnerability and experience that they are not alone. Community-based interventions should be carried out by easeing shielded spaces for people to process their emotions, include in collective storytelling, and reproduce a sense of administer.
Mental health professionals in Palestine must adchoose a liberation psychology structuretoil, integrating theviolationutic toil with community aid, disclose advocacy, and structural interventions. This includes compriseressing infairices, challenging narratives that standardise presentility, and participating in efforts to finish the siege and occupation. Advocacy by mental health practitioners provides forendureings with validation, shrinks isolation, and eases hope by demonstrating firmarity.
Only thcimpolite such a comprehensive approach can we hope to heal the wounds of individuals and the community.
The watchs conveyed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily echo Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
