When the word trauma is mentioned it is usually referred to as a terrible event from the past. But in Palestine trauma is rarely in the past. For most children and families in Palestine it is now, immediate and ongoing.

I write these words as someone who grew up in the West Bank in Palestine, where I completed my first MSc degree and began my career as a psychotherapist. I have several memories of being suffocated by tear gas, starting from as young as three years old. As a teenager I was used as a human shield by Israeli forces while on my way home from school. They would regularly shoot at our school and tear gas it while we were in the classrooms and would beat up our teachers in front of students. And, like many Palestinians, I was repeatedly held and harassed at Israeli military checkpoints.

I later worked with Palestinian children, adults and families who were subjected to violence by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Now living in Ireland since 2018 and working as a psychotherapist here, the sorrow of watching my country and family from afar and constantly losing loved ones is unfathomable.

A child who cannot sleep because of drones overhead, who wets the bed after seeing their home destroyed, or who jumps at every loud noise is not what some might consider disordered. They are responding exactly as any human being would when living with fear, uncertainty and repeated loss.

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In Gaza especially, many children have lived and are still living through bombardment, displacement, hunger, bereavement and the destruction of their homes, schools and neighbourhoods. Israel has destroyed most schools and every university in Gaza. Hundreds of people working in the education and health systems have been killed, including teachers, school staff, academics and university lecturers. Hundreds of football players and sports figures have also been killed, destroying not only lives but many of the spaces that give children routine, identity and hope. Some have lost parents, siblings, cousins and grandparents. Some have lost everyone.

A child who is hungry, grieving, frightened or exhausted cannot learn in the same way as a child who feels safe. Many traumatised children struggle to concentrate, remember information or sit still in class. Others become angry, disruptive or emotionally shut down

A child who is hungry, grieving, frightened or exhausted cannot learn in the same way as a child who feels safe. Many traumatised children struggle to concentrate, remember information or sit still in class. Others become angry, disruptive or emotionally shut down

By August 2024, an estimated 19,000 children had lost one or both parents. By early 2026, that figure had risen to more than 58,000. Aid workers in Gaza also began using the term WCNSF – wounded child no surviving family – for children who had been injured and had lost every member of their family.

In the West Bank, children live with a different but still relentless kind of trauma: military raids, settler violence, checkpoints, arrests, home demolitions and daily humiliation. For many Palestinian children there is no real sense of safety. Even when there is no bombing there is fear.

The impact of this goes beyond mood and emotions. Trauma affects the whole body. Children living with chronic stress are more likely to struggle with sleep, memory, concentration and emotional regulation. They may become withdrawn, anxious, angry or unable to trust others.

Science has also showed us that repeated childhood trauma can affect physical health across the lifespan. Adverse childhood experiences such as violence, family separation, bereavement and chronic fear can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, digestive problems, chronic pain and immune difficulties later in life. Long-term stress affects cortisol, adrenaline and other hormones linked to the body’s stress response system, leaving many children permanently stuck in survival mode.

This also has major consequences for education. A child who is hungry, grieving, frightened or exhausted cannot learn in the same way as a child who feels safe. Many traumatised children struggle to concentrate, remember information or sit still in class. Others become angry, disruptive or emotionally shut down.

Teachers are struggling too. In Gaza, teachers have also lost loved ones, homes and colleagues. Many are displaced themselves. Most schools no longer exist. Most of the remaining schools are overcrowded shelters now. Education depends on routine, safety and hope for the future. Trauma damages all three.

Yet despite all this, Palestinian communities continue to create ways of surviving and supporting one another.

Across Gaza and the West Bank, local organisations, youth centres, schools, women’s groups and community initiatives have long provided psychosocial support through art, storytelling, play, music, sport and group activities. These responses matter because they reflect the communal nature of Palestinian life and the collective nature of Palestinian trauma. These are not luxuries. They are essential forms of healing.

Preserving Palestinian culture is also part of that healing. Dabke, embroidery, poetry, food, music, oral history and connection to the land are traditions as well as ways of preserving identity and dignity in the face of erasure. They remind children that they belong to something older and stronger than the violence around them.

Last week Maynooth University’s Assisting Living and Learning Institute and Department of Education hosted a panel discussion on Trauma in Palestine: Ireland’s Psychosocial Response where these issues were discussed in depth. Practitioners and speakers reflected on the realities facing Palestinian children and families and the urgent need for meaningful, practical responses.

This is where Irish Aid, the World Health Organisation and the wider international community can play an important role.

Support is needed now for trauma-informed education, community mental health programmes, safe spaces for children, teacher support, family services and locally led psychosocial initiatives. Psychological and psychosocial interventions that speak to the culture, communal lifestyle and lived trauma of Palestinians should be prioritised over sterile interventions developed outside the context and focused only on individual healing. Funding should go directly to Palestinian organisations and local groups wherever possible, because they understand their communities better than anyone else.

Mental health support must also be linked to basic human needs. Children cannot heal if they are hungry, homeless or constantly under threat. There can be no meaningful recovery without a sense of safety.

Palestinian children do not need to be taught resilience. They have already shown more resilience than most adults could imagine. What they need is protection, stability, dignity and the chance to grow up without fear. I hope these needs will be responded to in solidarity by the Irish Government, as they have done before.

Talha AlAli is a Palestinian psychologist and psychotherapist based in Dublin, but working internationally. He is the founder of Decolonialised Minds and author of a book of the same name published in 2025

© The Irish Times