Aid organizations warn about the desperate humanitarian situation of the people in the Gaza Strip. Child psychologist Katrin Glatz Brubakk looked after traumatized patients in Chan Yunis for five weeks – and tells WELT what she saw.
The German-Norwegian Katrin Glatz Brubakk (born 1970) is a child psychologist, teaches at the Norwegian University of Trondheim and is involved with “Doctors Without Borders”. Most recently, she cared for traumatized patients in the Gaza Strip.
I worked for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza for almost five weeks. At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, I led a team of local psychologists and also cared for traumatized patients myself. The people of Gaza live in a constant state of shock. After more than a year of bombing and rocket attacks, they are completely exhausted. They have nightmares, sleep poorly and keep replaying what they have experienced in their minds.
Most of them saw seriously injured and mutilated corpses, and close relatives died before their eyes. After bombings, they had to collect human remains in order to bury the victims. But the worst thing is that the residents of the Gaza Strip cannot flee the war. There is no place where they are safe. They live in constant fear of being killed. This is a stress that you can’t imagine.
What I will never forget are the screams of the traumatized children. Even a door slamming loudly can trigger a panic attack, and then they scream in agony and are difficult to calm down. I saw a twelve-year-old boy in the hospital who became completely upset when his father left the room for just five minutes. The two are the only survivors of a large family, and the boy was now terrified of losing his father too.
The children suffer particularly from the war. Many become silent and no longer speak, they withdraw in fear, and I try to give the parents, who are also traumatized, a little help on how they can reach their children again and give them a feeling of security. I can support people in enduring this difficult life situation and, above all, I try to give the children small moments of peace and carefreeness; Breaks from fear and hopelessness.
Soap bubbles as therapy
I play a lot with the children. Then they can forget everything for a moment and laugh again, even though the bombs can be heard in the background. Playing has a therapeutic effect: When children blow up a balloon or blow bubbles, they breathe deeper and this relaxes them. Of course, this cannot hide the fact that many children are seriously injured. I looked after a two and a half year old girl who lost both legs. A 14-year-old had half her face and an arm torn away.
A six-year-old had burns all over her body. With her bandages she looked like a little mummy. After a few days she talked to me, although I had to rely on an interpreter because I don’t speak Arabic. She was able to rescue her two little dolls from the rubble and now she wanted to build a “dream house” for them. I got a box and while we cut out windows, doors and furniture, she talked about what she had experienced.
Two of her brothers were killed when a bomb hit their family’s apartment, and her big sister was in intensive care. Talking certainly helped her process what she had experienced. But she is just one of so many children in Gaza who desperately need help. And given the number of those affected, our help can only be a tiny but important contribution.
In Gaza, doctors are often unable to help as much as is needed. There are no sterile gloves for surgery. Limbs have to be amputated because there is a lack of equipment to care for them. And people don’t just die from direct war injuries.
A local colleague reported a cousin who was suffering from a lung disease that would normally have been easily treated. In Gaza, however, the appropriate medication was missing. I have worked in many crisis areas, but I have never experienced a situation like in Gaza.
I arrived from Norway by plane. From Amman we took the bus through Jordan to Israel. My arrival and that of my colleagues from abroad had already been reported to the humanitarian department of the Israeli military two weeks earlier. At the Kerem Shalom border crossing we received helmets and protective vests. We drove on in United Nations armored jeeps. A convoy of eight vehicles in total, about which the army and Hamas were informed.
I can hardly put into words what I saw in the south of the Gaza Strip. It was like we were immersed in a black and white film. Everything was covered in dark gray dust. The landscape is gone, everything is leveled, there is no greenery. The closer we got to Khan Yunis, the more remains of buildings still stood.
And then suddenly we saw tens of thousands of people on the streets. There had been an evacuation order and they carried what they still had with them: pots, a few blankets. We drove slowly through the crowd. Everything along the road was destroyed.
Where a corner of the wall still promised some protection, people tried to live. Others had built little huts out of bed covers and sheets. It’s hard for me to describe what I felt at that moment. The full extent of this destruction and human suffering will only be understood once there is peace.
I lived with my colleagues from abroad in a house in the so-called humanitarian zone on the coast, which is considered safe. On the last night before I left there was a deafening bang as a bomb landed about 500 meters away. A total of three bombs fell that night, 19 people died and many were injured.
People cannot live in fear forever – what they need in Gaza now is a ceasefire. I appeal to the international community to ensure that the weapons are silenced as quickly as possible.
Recorded by Claudia Ehrenstein
