Trauma and destruction of family

What does and war creates? Hatred, propaganda, loss of life, losing family members, losing the land home. on May 14, Shortly after Israel’s declaration of independence, five States invaded regions of the old Palestinian mandate, sparking the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. The 1948 war was the first brutal and hostile fight sparked by Israel’s proclamation of independence. A number of “international and intraregional elements” intertwined to produce a complex situation and a trigger for war, which led to the war. The result of the war went to Israel’s side. Within Palestine, The United Nations’ decision triggered a dispute between Jewish and Arab groups. Attacks by irregular gangs of Palestinian Arabs linked to local units of the Arab Liberation Army, which is made up of volunteers from Palestine and other Arab nations, sparked the war. These organizations targeted Jewish cities, settlements, and military installations. The Jewish forces were made up of the Haganah, the Palestinian Jewish population’s underground army, and two tiny irregular factions, the Irgun and the LEHI. The Arabs’ first purpose was to prevent the Partition Resolution from being implemented and a Jewish state from being established. The Jews, on the other hand, wanted to take control of the land given to them under the Partition Plan.

Wars and bombs, killings, house demolitions and dispossession, loss of agricultural land, checkpoints and closures, neighborhood disintegration, extrajudicial assassinations, states of siege, and, most notably, mass detention continue to afflict the Palestinian community. The ongoing military violence and destruction have led to families losing their loved ones. Increase mental health risk among children, especially in terms of posttraumatic stress disorder, and suppressive or somatic symptoms. Posttraumatic stress disorder occurs within personal experiences or those who are exposed to violence during war. Increasing exposure to traumatic experiences is very strongly connected with people having psychological issues. Directly experiencing, seeing, or learning about incidents involving real or threatened death, major harm, or other threat to one’s physical integrity. This view of war trauma is completely consistent with the realities of Palestinian children’s daily lives. Children living in chronic combat environments, such as Palestine, experience a persistent and complicated kind of trauma that affects all aspects of their lives and puts them in dehumanizing and aberrant living conditions. Palestinians have to deal with severe and extreme trauma because of the ongoing occupation and violence. A study found that the Palestinian children living in refugee camps display higher levels of optimism, life satisfaction, and perceived quality of life than Palestinian children living in Israel. This shows that environmental elements like freedom of mobility and home safety, as well as individual characteristics like good emotions, a sense of competence, and life satisfaction, can help youngsters cope with significant trauma. 

War, violence, occupation of land left people with nothing. Separating them from their families and friends. Gaining control over their land hasn’t been anything new for the Palestinian people. Israel would send a unit of five to six soldiers to destroy and discourage the residents of people living in certain land and would tell them to never come back there again. All of the residents are forced out of their homes, and their possessions are dumped in the middle of the village. They have to accept their fate. The destruction of war, violence, and occupation of land led Palestinians nowhere but to be refugees and suffer in poverty. They have no choice but to live life the way they can. After the occupation of northern coastal cities of Palestine by Israel in 19948 at the end of the British mandate. An estimated 300,000 Palestinian refugees moved to Lebanon.  A vast majority of these refugees lived in 12 overcrowded camps under the nominal responsivity of the United Nations relief and work agency. From the article Perdigon, Sylvain. For Us It Is Otherwise: Three Sketches on Making Poverty Sensible in the Palestinian Refugee Camps of Lebanon. “the latest data made available through a survey conducted jointly by UNRWA and the American University Of Beirut in 2010 indicated that in these areas two-thirds of Palestinian men and women lived below the poverty line” this means people living in these refugee camps having problems just to get a day’s food. They are having difficulty providing for their family and their children which can be distressing. A study showed that poverty incidence among Palestinian refugees was 89% higher than that of Lebanese Nationals (35.1%) and that Palestinian men and women were four times more likely to be extremely poor than the citizens of Lebanon.  In Palestinian refugee camps, living conditions are appalling. Overcrowding is common, and the camps often lack basic infrastructures such as roads and sanitation. During times of crisis, the camps are frequently without electricity for months at a period, and when it is available, it is intermittent. Raw sewage washes into people’s homes in certain Lebanese camps when the winter rains hit.

Even within camps, Palestinian refugees are prohibited from repairing or constructing property. This means that it is illegal to restore their homes or facilities such as schools if they are harmed in any manner, and those who attempt to do so face severe fines. In theory, the refugees should be allowed to do the repairs because they can rebuild with UN help. Bureaucratic blunders, on the other hand, frequently prevent this from happening. Confusion can still prevail when the building is permitted. On one occasion, Lebanese police showed over 30 times despite the fact that the refugees had been granted permission to perform renovations to a nearby school. Apart from that, the rate among Palestinian refugees is high. They are struggling to get jobs and provide for their family. In the book Men in the sun three Palestinian refugees attempt to go to Kuwait in search of work. One left to improve the situation of his family, one left in the hope of beginning a new life, one left after his brother in Kuwait sent him a letting telling him he had gotten married, and he won’t be sending money for their family again so he will have to take care of his family now. However, on the verge of traveling illegally in a water tank, they die because of the heat on the tank while at a check post. Yet they don’t bang on the wall. Because getting to Kuwait was probably more important than their life. 

Life did not get any better for the Palestinian even now. They still get bombed they still see violence, they still come across the deaths of their people. The daily bloodshed that children see, In the context of Israel’s crippling siege, which maintains and exacerbates Gaza’s humanitarian disaster, including the loss of loved ones, has emotionally wounded a whole generation,” said Kate O’Rourke, NRC’s Palestine Country Director. “Undoing the damage of trauma and restoring their sense of hope for the future requires years of effort with these children. According to the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry, Israeli forces killed 34 children in the context of the Great March of Return demonstrations in the nine months between 30 March and 31 December 2018. Thirty-two died from live ammunition or bullet fragments and two died from direct hits to the head from gas canisters. The Commission found a further 1,642 children sustained injuries from live ammunition, bullet fragments or shrapnel, rubber-coated metal bullets and direct tear gas canister hits. Children in Gaza are particularly susceptible because they are less shielded from strikes, are exposed to more civilian casualties, and do not have access to mental health services. In Gaza, children under the age of 14 accounts for more than 40% of the population. Since 2007, Hamas, a violent Islamic party, has ruled Gaza. At the same time, 54 percent of Gaza’s population is still employed, 53 percent of people live in poverty and food insecurity has risen to 68 percent.

The losing of Land, the loss of your house, losing your family, losing your children can be really traumatizing and that is what the Palestinians are faced ever since the war of 1948. Children are getting affected emotionally and mentally. They are witnessing things that they are not supposed to witness at a very young age. They are not getting a proper education. Deaths of children are occurring leaving their families traumatized. Family members are often separated. The most obvious cause is death.  They face poverty throughout their lifespan. They lose the person that used to provide for them. leaving the children to work or take up responsibility. Children can be vulnerable by being exposed to civil casualties and lack of mental health care. Trauma can have a greater impact on a peson when they are unable to remove themselves from a dangerous situation.