Every single child in Gaza needs mental health support
JVL Introduction
In the compelling article, the journalist interviews James Elder, UNICEF’s global spokesperson who has recently returned from Gaza. I could pull into this introduction something that made me think “imagine I was in that situation” from almost every paragraph, but this is perhaps the most harrowing as we think of the future. “There’s nowhere else in the world where UNICEF has ever said that every single child needs mental-health support… you don’t call it P.T.S.D. in Gaza because there’s nothing post—there’s always new traumas coming.”
UNICEF’s priority is children, but this interview makes clear that everyone, especially parents, is traumatised.
LL
This article was originally published by The New Yorker on Mon 7 Jul 2025. Read the original here.
The War on Gaza’s Children
Without safe access to food, water, or medical care, survival has become a daily gamble for the region’s youngest residents.
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The best thing for their mental health, would be for US and European imperialism to do one.
We with a heart and a conscience can only image the pain and the daily reality in that humanly-created hellhole. God bless all those still alive and fighting for their lives in Gaza and also in the West Bank. How anyone can genuinely cloak this fascist terrorism in the name of Judaism is beyond me. All we can do is keep all eyes on Palestine. Keep raising our voices and holding power to account at whatever cost. Every morning we scroll through our phones and think “just how many more Palestinian civilians have been murdered by the genocidal bastards since last night”? We mustn’t give up, like those in Gaza haven’t given up. Our tears can dry, but the hearts, especially of the children of Gaza, weep every day in the hope that the terror will stop. Words fail us whilst the Americans load the weapons, the Zionists fire them and the collective “west” laughs in the face of humanity. Hopefully, judgement day will come soon for the war criminals in Europe, Washington and London. God bless the resistance. God bless the children and the parents of those surviving against all odds. We must despair because they can’t despair. Hope and Allah is all they have right now.
It is a tragedy .
Nobody hurts people like their own people and Israelis and Gaza people are really their own people .
It is a tragedy .
James Elder is a human being and his contributions to the Radio 4 “Today” programme have saved our set from flying out of the window on several occasions as Messrs. Robinson, Rajan and Webb churn out their glib complacencies to reinforce the establishment line trotted out by the BBC.
The issue is, will humanity of any kind survive the phenomenon of Gaza? When our children and grandchildren look back and examine the records with any sensitivity that remains after seeing the unthinkable on a regular basis and when they see through the obvious lies and evasions, the huge, indignant chutzpah of the Israeli spokespeople, what will they make of those of us inhabiting the planet at this time?
There were many Germans who might well have suspected what was coming in 1933, but decided to keep their thoughts to themselves; how will the UK complicity – no, participation, via F-35 components supply and Akrotiri intelligence reports – be spun away? And a “human rights lawyer” led the way?
We know that it is the winners who write the history, but who is winning in Gaza?