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Ending Israeli occupation, genocide ‘only way to heal’: Doctor
Dr Mads Gilbert, an emergency physician who has regularly worked in Gaza, says Palestinians in the enclave are coping as best they can with the psychological trauma of Israel’s genocide.
Gilbert said “the most important factor for healing in Gaza is an end to the bombing” and an end to Israel’s siege and occupation of Palestine. “That is the real preventive measure, also from a medical point of view,” he told Al Jazeera.
As it stands, Palestinians’ ability to live in safety, to have access to food and water, and to have “a future and dignity” are all under attack by Israel, Gilbert explained.
“What is going on is completely reversible,” he said. “Any attempt to heal in Gaza has to be culturally sensitive, and it has to take a starting point with ending the occupation and stopping this ongoing genocide. That’s the only way to heal.”
In Israel, killings of Palestinians in Gaza seen as ‘collateral damage’
Asked about Israel’s deadly attack on a Palestinian family in Gaza City, Israeli political commentator Akiva Eldar says the Israeli public remains largely focused on celebrating the return of captives from Gaza.
And to the Israeli government, the killings are viewed as “collateral damage”, Eldar told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is gearing up for elections with opinion polls suggesting he could lose to both centre-left and far-right parties. “What matters to him is his political base,” Eldar said.
“Netanyahu is very worried about the possibility that the international community and President Trump will put pressure on him to go back to the negotiating table” to discuss a two-state solution with the Palestinians, Eldar added.
‘We don’t have tears any more’: How Palestinian grief, trauma is ‘continuous’
Abdalhadi Alijla, a Palestinian writer from Gaza whose mother was killed in an Israeli attack during the genocide, says grief in the coastal enclave is “unique”.
“We are born grieving, to be honest,” Alijla told Al Jazeera from Stockholm, Sweden. “Grief accompanies us from the beginning of our lives and it’s not possible to come [to] terms with our grief, and that’s why I call this ‘Gaza Annihilation Trauma Syndrome’.”
Alijla said that many Palestinians have lost the ability to cry as they witnessed Israel’s killings of so many of their family members and the destruction of their homes.
“We cried once or twice, even [though] we lost so many of our family members,” he said of himself and his relatives.
“Our trauma is a continuous process, and even if it stopped – the killings, the genocide – it’s about the annihilation of our memory, our identity. It’s about how our beloved ones have been killed and taken from us.”
