Ann Podlipny lives in Chester.

‘I’m dying inside every day,” states Ayman Nijim, a child welfare advocate from Gaza and a former project manager of a healing project titled, “Let the Children Play and Heal” In a recent discussion with New Hampshire peace advocates, Nijim spoke about collective trauma and its effect on children’s psyches. As a PhD student in transformative social change with an emphasis on liberation psychology at Saybrook University (CA) he claims that the suffering from harsh conditions resulting from years of Israeli oppression together with the ongoing massacre of over 40,000 civilians, half of whom are children, have caused universal trauma.

In what he describes as “the largest open-air prison in pulverized Gaza,” children experience flashbacks, nightmares and constant anxiety. Ayman adds a new term, “affective blunting” where people mightn’t even express their emotions because of the magnitude of the trauma. He believes that compassion fatigue has seared into many. Compassion fatigue is a soul weariness that comes with caring.

As Gaza has become “a testing ground for indiscriminate killing,” (Nijim) they are ever fearful and experience “anticipatory anxiety” knowing that death is imminent and inevitable. A desperate mother writes Nijim, “If I have to watch my baby die how can I keep from going out of my mind?” A grandmother chooses her own “slow death” by saving her food for her grandchild who “deserves a future.” Nijim has witnessed Gaza become “a graveyard for children” whose greatest fear is not if they will die but when.

In an excerpt from his poem “Palestinian” Ibrahim Nesrallah laments:

“When I burned, I inhabited the letters of my free name like a butterfly / P A L E S T I N E / When my roof was suddenly blown off into the sky / and with it / a wall, a window / and the youngest of my children / I gathered myself in the G and the A and the Z and the A/ I became Gaza.”

A former mental health counselor for New Horizons, Ayman Nijim has recently created his own program for schools and community centers in Gaza’s Nusseiret Refugee Camp. He distinguishes his therapeutic approach from the Western definition of PTSD, naming children’s exposure to repeated danger over decades as genocidal trauma or ongoing complex trauma. They suffer collectively not from a single traumatic event but from a longstanding “process” of living in survival mode. Writing from personal experience about the tragic death of his childhood friend, Nijim states, “for us kids, seeing our Palestinian blood spilled on the streets of our neighborhood marked a second, a third and fourth and a millionth Nakba.”

Nijim’s program involves three stages. First, an immersion in recreational activities: Arabic dance, puppets, magic, clowning and singing. Stage two focuses on creative writing, drawing and theater to encourage children to express their innermost thoughts and feelings. Their stories and artwork are replete with images of drones, tanks, black hawks, F16s and Apache helicopters, their endless buzzing fueling mental anguish. Finally, psycho-social support and training sessions are provided to parents teaching coping strategies so that their children feel safe and loved. Restoring feelings of childhood through laughter, positive emotions and feelings of joy are valued as signs that children are practicing their basic human rights.

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Not only have Nijim’s healing experiences reached thousands of school-aged children but he had helped 38 “maya” (water) projects that provide purification units inside schools giving students access to drinkable water. He is certain that Israel is attempting “ecocide,” namely, a deliberate policy to destroy Gaza’s life-sustaining resources as it continues to control water quality (often contaminated), food distribution (severe rationing), electricity (less than two hours daily) and transportation (no access to the outside).

As of today, countless numbers of children remain buried under rubble. In “Reflections of a Diaspora Gazan,” Nijim declares, “while the free world counts our massacred, Palestinians don’t count. Keeping track of the numbers will not give justice to those who are murdered every day without compunction or remorse. They, too, have dreams, aspirations, families, pets, toys, neighbors, friends and everything anyone with a beating heart holds dear...each life that is cut short is a constant reminder that the loss of one life is equivalent to the loss of all humankind.”

To Ayman Nijim and others working on behalf of saving children in Gaza’s unimaginable circumstances let it be known that you are not forgotten. Members of the American Jewish community have not remained silent. If Not Now, Not in my Name and many other groups alongside the multitude of student voices protesting on college campuses will continue to support your just cause and provide hope. Jews against the war are uniquely positioned to make a difference in international opinion and to pressure our federal delegation for an immediate cease-fire so that, once again, children can play and heal. To that end, “inshallah” (God willing) and “shalom” (peace).