Ceasefire in Gaza
Jan 25 2025 The BBC
Gaza rescuers face toll of their work: 'I have become afraid of my own memories'
To the unknown child: I tried to save your young life in a Gaza hospital. Now your face haunts me Jan 24 The Guardian
Goodbye to the lost children of Gaza. You were loved, you are remembered, you did not deserve it Jan 27 The Guardian
As a surgeon in Gaza, I witnessed hell visited on children. It shames me that Britain played a part in it Feb 2 The Guardian
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Fighting has finally stopped in Gaza after 15 months, but that does not mean that the war has ended. The fighting may erupt again, as it has many times before, but that is not exactly what I mean here.
Those who experienced this war, or any war for that matter, will carry the war with them, in one way or another, for the rest of their lives. The war will become part of the collective memory of the people, part of the fabric of society, and it will be carried on to the next generations, even if you do not want that to happen.
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After fifteen months of war: at least 47.000 confirmed dead, an estimated 10.000 more under the 37 million tons of rubble, and over 111.000 wounded, some with amputations and other life changing injuries.
And, in addition to these horrible immediate results of the war, there will be the long term psychological damage people will carry with them.
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We humans have coping mechanisms which help us in crisis situations, but once the danger is over and the adrenaline wears off, there will be a price to pay. We cannot un-experience what we have gone through, or un-see what we have seen, or actively forget something which is seared into our memory.
The quote “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”, is usually mentioned in a positive sense, like gaining a new perspective to life, but it works both ways.
We cannot just push the negative away and go on as nothing has happened. We can try, but deep down, we know it will not work.
So, in order to keep on living, we, humans, will have to deal with the negative somehow, it won’t go away by itself.
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The question here is; how will this be done in Gaza? The hospitals are barely functioning, and those that are, are obviously by necessity, focused on saving lives and treating physical injuries.
Unfortunately, it is far easier to fix a fractured bone, than it is to fix a fractured mind, but that does not mean that we should not try.
So, we should do everything we can to help the people in Gaza to rebuild their lives and their society.
If we, for any reason, decide not to help, we will just be perpetuating the cycle of violence and sowing the seeds of the next war.
In this years long reconstruction of Gaza, the homes, the roads, the hospitals, and other physical things are necessary and important, but we should not forget the humans who lived through the war; after all, no one should “be afraid of their own memories”.
