‘Children as young as five are saying they would prefer to die’: Irish doctors say Gaza children are ‘retraumatised’

Children as young as five in Gaza are expressing a wish to die due to the trauma of the conflict they’ve experienced, a medical campaign group has said.
Dr Aoife Twohig, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist who is involved in the Gaza Paediatric Care initiative, a team of Irish medical professionals that seek to help children caught in the crossfire of the conflict in Palestine, said the psychological impact of the war on children is “unfathomable”.
There is no post-trauma in Gaza, she said, but there is “retraumatisation constantly if you survive”.
“Children as young as five are saying they would prefer to die than to continue living. We know the impact of this,” she said.
“We know that in Ireland we have high rates of suicidal ideation in our own young people, but we do not see people as young as five voicing that level of distress.”
Dr Twohig said children are very resilient, but recovery from this sort of trauma is “dependent on their environment and those relationships they have”.
“What is really distressing and disturbing is in Gaza we now have children who all of their family has died. We have this wounded child, with no surviving family. They don’t even have basic access to caregivers,” she said.
“So it’s a very, very complex situation. But I would always believe we all can recover. It’s about probably living with that experience and it’s about making sure we provide that safety and security people need to live with their experiences.”
[ Israeli forces are committing a war crime in northern Gaza, says Micheál Martin as he calls for international actionOpens in new window ]
Dr George Little, a consultant in emergency medicine in Naas general hospital, and a member of Irish Healthcare Workers for Palestine, said healthcare staff are being specifically targeted during the violence.
“There were 36 hospitals in Gaza, and at the minute maybe three are functioning at a very low level. The rest have been completely destroyed,” he said.
[ Gaza children on way to Republic for medical treatmentOpens in new window ]
“We’re getting information that doctors and nurses are being targeted, if they’re identified in the street they could be shot. Hospitals are bombed and destroyed. We have many stories from colleagues who worked out there which are really, really harrowing.”
Last week, a United Nations inquiry said on Thursday it found that Israel carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza’s healthcare system in the Gaza war, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.
Meanwhile, up to 30 children from Gaza are to be brought to Ireland for medical treatment.
Children in need of treatment and their carer would be flown into the State by the European Union. A range of conditions would be treated under the scheme, but it will exclude orthopaedics due to existing pressures in that speciality area.