The Israel-Gaza conflict is likely to leave people in the region struggling with trauma-related mental health symptoms for a long time to come.
Left: A Palestinian woman cries at the garden of Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital after it was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on Oct. 18. Right: After an attack by Hamas on a kibbutz near the Gaza border, a swing is left intact while most of this family's house is in ruins. Five family members were kidnapped.Left: A Palestinian woman cries at the garden of Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital after it was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on Oct. 18.
. The rates of these symptoms were nearly double the national baseline prevalence of 3.6% for PTSD and 4.9% for depression.A surge in calls to Israel's mental health hotline Mental health issues are emerging even in these early days of the war. Following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, Israel's mental health crisis line saw a surge in calls, says sociologist Nira Kaplansky, who oversees the hotline, which is run by an organization calledAlmost overnight, she and her colleagues had to train more volunteers online to become crisis counselors."We were around 50 volunteers and now we are 150," says Kaplansky.
She also recounts a call from a young person"who was in a panic room and both his parents were dead in the room near him. asking, crying, screaming for help."The work has been emotionally difficult for the staff and volunteers, too, she adds, because they have been reeling from their own trauma and grief."I have friends who have lost children and I have friends who have a kidnapped child," says Emi Palmor, the chair of NATAL.
Both Kaplansky and Palmor expect the need for mental health care to remain high for the foreseeable future. "When I send them a message and it takes 2 to 3 days for them to get a little bit of internet to send me that 'we are okay,' 'we are still alive,' or, 'no, we are not okay, it's very touch," she says.
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