Healing the Spirit, Instilling Hope


The Gaza Mental Health Foundation believes in the human rights of all people, no matter their ethnicity or religion, and recognizes the close connection between mental health and human rights. We condemn the atrocities committed on October 7 against Israeli civilians and the ongoing atrocities committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, whose human rights have been violated for 75 years. We believe that all people have the right to live in peace, freedom and security, and our work aims to advance that goal.

 
 

Gaza News

    

Recordings from the discussion now available

Webinar: Discussion Session

Webinar: Q&A Session

 

Draw Therapy Technique Helps Children Tell of What Goes In Their Minds

My name is M.A. I am 11, but I am scared of the war. We are going to die all. In Gaza we don’t grow up. My 2 brothers died. I just wanted to see them off before burial. But, I couldn’t. I dew the hospital beds they lied in. The beds are empty, because they no longer there. They have gone.


 

Humanity in Gaza

Panelists explore Gaza’s cycles of trauma, recovery, and re-traumatization

Panelists:

  • Samah Jabr: Head of the Mental Health Unit within the Palestinian Ministry of Health; founding member, Palestine-Global Mental Health Network
  • Ahmed Alnaouq: Palestinian journalist; co-founder of We Are Not Numbers
  • Steve Sosebee: Founder and President, Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund
  • Alice Rothchild (moderator): Author, filmmaker, and Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School (Ret’d); founder, Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council

 

Cosponsored by the Gaza Mental Health Foundation and supported by Grassroots International

Speakers: 

  • Dr. Alice Rothchild is a retired ob-gyn, author and filmmaker who last visited Gaza in August 2023 as part of a delegation focused on human rights
  • Dr. Othman Mohammed is a child psychiatrist, born and raised as a refugee in Lebanon, currently Assistant Professor of Psychiatry with UMASS Chan Med School-Baystate

A Voice From Gaza

Please note that the following videos from Dr Yasser Abu-Jamei were recorded and are already outdated given the severity of the war.

 

Summary of message – 25 November 2023

 

Live recording with the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) – 17 November 2023

Late October

The level of intervention that is needed is really massive. Our intervention is extremely needed,
says Dr Yasser Abu Jamei, Director General of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP)
speaking from Khan Younis on a phone charged by solar panels.
We have dozens of children who are the sole survivor in their family.”  Video


Video: How is Israel’s Bombardment of Gaza Impacting the Work of GCMHP and its Staff?

Video: What Does GCMHP Need From the International Community?

 


Blockade, Bombings, and Continuing Trauma: Assessing Mental Health in Gaza

 

World Bank: Over half of Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza suffer from depression

“Conflict and unemployment are heavily impacting mental health, organization says; calls for a ‘holistic’ solution.” – The Times of Israel, 16 July 2023

 

‘We tell them they can still laugh’ – the doctor treating the mental scars of Gaza’s children

Read the full article in The Observer

Yasser Abu Jamei: ‘We try to bring colour into their lives.’ Photograph: Sonja Horsman/The Observer

Military violence everywhere takes a heavy toll on children and its impact can be long lasting. During his recent US tour, Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei, the head of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, repeatedly stressed that trauma for Palestinian children is never ‘post’ but is triggered anew by Israel’s occasional missile strikes and the constant buzzing of drones flying overhead.  Years following a major military attack, mental health professionals have discovered that the trauma experienced by Gaza’s children is “relentlessly ongoing and reactivated.”    

Screen grab from “Child Trauma in Gaza” video

 Child Trauma In Gaza (Video link)

Four out of five children in the Gaza Strip suffer from depression, sadness and fear caused by fifteen years of the Israeli blockade on the territory Report by Save the Children

Text reads:

Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh February 8, 2022

 


100% of your donation supports mental health efforts in Gaza.  Please Donate

Photo by Eman Mohammad. Used with permission.

Healing the Spirit, Instilling Hope

The Gaza Mental Health Foundation Inc. was formed in 2001 to support the critically important work of providing mental health services for the people in the Gaza Strip, especially the children who are the region’s future.