CTSD: Current Traumatic Stress Disorder in Gaza

By William Covert

I've just returned from a nine day visit to Israel, the West Bank and to Gaza. After spending just three of the five scheduled days in Gaza talking with survivors of the recent war on Gaza who have lost family members and friends to a ruthless massacre perpetrated on a hopelessly trapped and powerless people, plus visiting the sites and seeing with my own eyes the devastation inflicted by a harsh and brutal occupier, I found myself shutting down emotionally and psychologically. To protect myself I needed to insulate myself from the pain, frustration and anger of the people of Gaza, not to mention my own pain, frustration and anger with my fellow countrymen who, not only support this madness but fund it as well and to the tune of $30 billion. Now that I have returned to New Mexico I am beginning to adjust back into a familiar world. However, that world can never be the same again. Once a person knows a thing that person cannot 'not' know that thing.

These then are the horrors that the population of Gaza must labor under, day in and day out. They are literally prisoners on their own land and their imprisonment is enforced through a brutal and illegal occupation accompanied by an immoral and illegal blockade. They are constantly haunted by the question ever present in the heart and minds of all of Gaza, "When will the next attack on Gaza take place?" Not, "Will there be another attack on Gaza" but "When will the next attack occur?" It is a question ever present but rarely voiced in Gaza as if to give voice to the question out loud might cause it to happen again . . . soon . . . today! As children play (not only for the sake of play but to avoid their reality) and the people of Gaza busy themselves with their daily chores the implications of the question permeates and haunts every aspect of life in Gaza as it hangs thick in the air. . . and still they wait and wait some more. What else can they do?

It is an impossible situation for the people of Gaza. The occupiers will not allow them to leave the open air prison and, on the other hand, there is nowhere to hide, to feel safe in Gaza. It is an Israeli imposed physical, emotional and psychological ball and chain. And when the Israeli Defense Forces (now there's a misnomer if ever there were one) attack, it must be like shooting fish in a fish bowl for them. Of course they call them "surgical strikes" as if it somehow that makes the event more humane and clinical. It makes it all appear a whole lot neater unless, that is, you happen to be the person left with the clean up in the aftermath.

I am seriously thinking of returning to the West Bank and to Gaza for Christmas and New Years this year. Assuming I can raise the necessary funds to make the trip, it certainly seems like the Christian thing to do . . .

PS There is not one person in Gaza suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. "POST" denotes past tense and suggests over and done with. Such is not the case in Gaza. The stress is ongoing, constant and ever present in the here and now. And through their trauma the people of Gaza, in there pain, frustration and anger cry out to the world, "How is it you can sit idly by and allow these crime against humanity to continue? Have you no compassion? Have you no soul? Have you no heart?"

Won't you please join with me to break the silence surrounding the illegal, immoral and criminal siege, blockade and occupation of Gaza. Speaking up and speaking out against illegal, immoral and criminal acts does not make a person anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish or even anti-Zionist, just courageous in this day and age!