‘We have 7 seconds to run for our lives’: Palestinians and Israelis on the ground find trauma inescapable
TEL AVIV, Israel – When Israeli airstrikes feel close to home, Ghaith Alrayyes scrambles to find his family, lies on the floor and prays to God to keep them safe.
“They can literally strike anywhere they want, any time they want,” said the 18-year-old in Gaza City. “We kind of got used to it. It’s not a good thing to get used to it, to be normal to hear airstrikes and see dead people around the city, especially civilians.
From the start of fighting May 10 until the cease-fire announced Thursday, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes, and Hamas launched 4,000 rockets, many of which were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system. At least 230 Palestinians have been killed, and 58,000 fled their homes. Twelve people in Israel were killed.
Palestinians and Israelis are no strangers to trauma, sirens and rockets making up the soundtracks of their lives. Yet many said the latest violence affects them more than before.
“Every noise triggers me ... I’ve never experienced anything like this. Not even the war in 2014 was as scary as this," said Arielle Barokas, 25, from Tel Aviv. "There are far more rockets, and they are much more powerful. It has affected my everyday life tremendously."
Just as the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian violence is multifaceted, so are the causes and manifestations of the mental health struggles in the Middle East, where many people express fear, numbness, hypervigilance, anxiety and avoidance.
"We're talking about a society that's been under traumatic exposure since 1948," said Jess Ghannam, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco who specializes in the health consequences of war. "It's not like this is a singular traumatic event that you negotiate, you get help and for the most part you get better. This is trans-generational trauma. Trauma that's carried on, from generation to generation, which makes getting better and being able to cope and move forward very, very difficult."
Alrayyes sees it as a "big disease."
"Every person in Gaza, no matter the age, everyone needs psychotherapy," he said. "It’s way too scary.”
Sheltered and exposed
Alrayyes and Barokas spoke with the Paste BN Network, from opposite sides of the conflict, about fear.
“The minute I hear the sirens, I go into a state of panic. The thought that a terrorist organization is firing rockets, intended to kill me, or anyone around me, is a hard realization," Barokas said. "I simply can’t be alone. But the fear doesn’t change, even when I’m in a shelter.”
Civilians on both sides are suffering, but in Gaza, one of the most densely populated places in the world, families have no bomb shelters and few safe places to go. Its 2.1 million residents have been under Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007, making it virtually impossible to leave. Though Hamas fired barrages of rockets at civilian areas, critics said Israel subjected Gaza to disproportionate bombardment, killing families and destroying buildings, roads and health facilities.
Having a bomb shelter or safe room in residential buildings is common in Israel, especially in the south; not in Gaza.
Barokas said her apartment building is old and doesn't have a shelter, so she stays with a friend.
Ronit Bart, 51, knows that the difference between life and death can be measured in seconds in Kibbutz Saad, where she lives 2 miles from the Israeli-Gaza border. At the sound of rockets overhead, she has to find a bomb shelter right away.
“The first thing I think about when the siren goes off is where everyone is. Are they safe?" Bart said. "We have a shelter in our house, thank God, but sometimes you find yourself outside. And you just have to find the closest shelter possible, often with neighbors or in public shelters.”
"We have seven seconds to run for our lives," she said.
Anas Alfarra, 29, of Khan Yunis, Gaza, said there are no bomb shelters for him and his family. In several days, there has been “no single 15 minutes without an audible airstrike," he said. “At some points, you will hear five or six."
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it turned its schools in Gaza into shelters amid the bombardment.
Hamas militants find protection in the "Metro," an elaborate system of tunnels, some more than 65 feet deep, that extend for hundreds of miles, according to an Israeli air force official who spoke to The Associated Press.
Civilians lack shelter and resources. More than half of all households in Gaza are in poverty, according to the UNRWA.
Electricity and clean water, which were already limited in Gaza, became even more scarce during the attacks, Alfarra said. A bank and residential building behind his family's home were destroyed.
'She trembles': Palestinian, Israeli parents attempt to ease kids' anxiety
"Our kids are traumatized," Alfarra said. "People are worn out. This has been an ongoing situation for years. Even when there are no airstrikes, life is quite unbearable.”
Children have borne an excruciating burden in the fighting, including 65 Palestinian children and two Israeli children who've been killed. Families in Gaza said their children have lived with trauma and anxiety because of the conflict. The Norwegian Refugee Council said 11 of the children killed by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza were participating in program aimed at helping them deal with trauma.
“My 15-year-old son suffers from PTSD," Bart said. "He is extremely anxious, he bites his nails all the time and often won’t leave the bomb shelter for hours after a rocket attack."
As an English teacher, Bart knows her son is not alone.
“Many kids sleep in their parents' bedrooms," she said. "Some of them won’t shower alone. They need help with everything they do because of the rocket attacks. And it makes you wonder, 'Am I doing the right thing by exposing my kids to this?' But at the end of the day, this is our home. We belong here, and we aren’t going anywhere.”
Maya Kramer, 42, moved from New York to Israel about 15 years ago. Like others, she said the fighting between Hamas and Israel is affecting her more than ever.
“I’m a meditation and wellness coach, so I calm people down for a living. But because of rocket attacks, I simply can’t do that," she said.
Kramer has had similar experiences with her 10-year-old.
"I’m with my daughter constantly. I don’t leave her side, especially at night when we go to sleep and she trembles," Kramer said. "I barely leave my apartment, and I’m constantly alert."
Kramer's situation is just one example of how the toll on children affects parents. That toll is exacerbated by a lack of access to safety, medical and mental health resources many in Gaza face.
"They are unable to protect their kids, which is probably the most traumatic thing for most parents and adults," said Ghannam, who has made more than two dozen visits to Gaza. "That's really psychologically devastating for the parent. It makes it more difficult ... for them to provide the psychological and emotional support that these children need to get through a bombing or an air attack or a siege."
More: Kids experience trauma in Gaza unlike anywhere else in the world
Alfarra spends days playing with his nephews, trying to make them laugh between harrowing moments.
“I feed them as best I can. I play with them. I laugh with them. We live as best as we can," he said, "because we don’t know if tomorrow is promised.”
Behind every headline, a person, a family
Among hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, one drew particular international attention last week for targeting the al-Sharouk tower, which housed media outlets including The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera.
"It is only a government that does not want the world to know what it is doing, which goes about bombing a building from where journalists operate because they are reporting the story that the government wants to hide," said Salil Tripathi of PEN International, a 100-year-old nongovernment organization that focuses on freedom of expression. "Israel may hold elections, but it has jailed poets, threatened journalists and now bombed newspaper offices."
What didn't make headlines was that the strike destroyed Alrayyes' family ice cream business.
“We literally lost everything,” the college student said. “We rely on that ice cream shop and the income, in addition to eight other people who are aiding and supporting their families through their jobs.”
Finding new work will be difficult as Gaza faces high unemployment rates. Alrayyes, who studied in the USA in 2018-2019, hopes to return for better opportunities. His American friends, hearing that the ice cream business was destroyed, started an online fundraiser via GoFundMe.
Alfarra, originally from Gaza, also sought opportunity in the USA. He works in Seattle as an intellectual property manager after getting what's known as an "Einstein" visa for highly skilled people, but he returned May 10 to celebrate the end of Ramadan with his family.
Palestinians need economic empowerment instead of being reliant on foreign aid, he said.
“We are currently being bullied, and it’s important to stand up to our bully,” Alfarra said. “However, we would rather build and rather heal and live peacefully in our places that we call home.”
'Hopefully, I make it out alive'
Alfarra said he is encouraged by the massive Palestinian protest movement that has spread globally as people rally not only to end the fighting but also to lift the blockade in Gaza and end occupation of the West Bank.
“I’m hoping for Palestinians to be treated equally,” he said. “And just like Israelis, to have a place to call home on paper, to have citizenship, to have the right to travel across borders, to have the right to pursue their dreams … to return home, build, heal and grow.”
Gazans feel forgotten and people think they deserve to “get beat down,” he said. He wants people to remember that Gazans “just want to live in dignity and live a normal life.”
In Tel Aviv, Kramer said that one night, she was in a bomb shelter with strangers and without her daughter.
"When I finally got her on the phone for a split second, I could hear her crying. It put me in a state of shock. I felt disconnected [from] my body. But there I was, with all these strangers, and we felt like we were all in this together. Like we were all holding each other's hands in a way,” she said. "I’m praying that this will be over soon, for everyone."
When things get bad for Alrayyes, he copes by remembering his time as an exchange student in Portland, Oregon.
For Alrayyes, the USA was “like heaven” because of the freedom, the people and the activities, such as lacrosse, which he loved.
“I actually felt what this life means because here in Palestine, especially in Gaza, we don’t actually live life,” he said. “We’re under Israeli occupation. We can’t leave the city. Our two borders are most of the time closed. … I really hope for peace and safety and freedom because right now, we don’t have any of those life basics.”
All Alrayyes can do is look toward the horizon.
“Hopefully soon, when all this finishes, I will go back to Portland,” he said. “I keep myself calm and optimistic. Hopefully, I make it out alive.”
Contributing: Alia Dastagir, Paste BN; The Associated Press