MSF AU | In Palestine, childhoods are stolen by genocide

In Palestine, childhoods are stolen by genocide

Three years of Israel's military offensive, mass displacement and destruction have devastated the mental health of children in Gaza.

Many have lost family members, homes, schools and friends, while repeated displacement and catastrophic living conditions have taken away the spaces where children should be able to feel like children and play without fear.

Instead of focusing on playing and going to school, fetching water, queuing for food or helping their families survive are now part of their daily responsibilities.

Children have also begun to recreate what they see around them through play and drawings. Instead of games reflecting an ordinary childhood, counsellors see children imitating aid distributions, describing attacks or playing among the rubble of destroyed buildings.

“Children who grew up during the war, who are today three or four years old, have lost their understanding of so many fundamental concepts... Many don't know what ‘home’ means. The tent has become their home, because they have never experienced living in a house.”

- Mahmoud Al-Balbisi, an MSF mental health counsellor.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of people in Gaza requiring urgent mental health and psychosocial support has more than doubled since before the conflict, from around 485,000 to more than one million people. Mental healthcare has become a crucial part of MSF’s work: teams provide individual consultations, psychosocial and psychoeducational group activities for adults, as well as recreational activities for children and adolescents, who are particularly vulnerable.

Despite their resilience, for children the effects of prolonged violence are visible in their everyday behaviour. Counsellors report increasing anxiety, fear, screaming, aggressive behaviour, nail-biting and involuntary urination among children.

“After three years of violence, inhumane living conditions and loss, children are not simply carrying memories of war; their experiences have reshaped how they understand safety and childhood itself,” says Franz Luef, MSF head of mission for Palestine. “There is still no safety for children in Gaza. Bombing can happen at any moment, and they continue to live in constant fear, with no opportunity to recover or escape from what they have already endured. Mental health needs in Gaza are enormous but the services and the spaces available for children to recover remain severely limited following the systematic decimation of the health system by Israeli forces.”

Between late 2023 and September 2026, MSF teams provided more than 132,000 individual mental health consultations and supported more than 246,000 people through group activities.

All of our work in Palestine, and in more than 70 other countries where we work, is only possible with your support. Please make a donation today and help us continue this invaluable work. Thank you.