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Wednesday, 14 March, 2001, 16:13 GMT
Gaza's lost generation
![]() Intifada icon: Muhammad al-Durrah's brother remembers
By Middle East correspondent Frank Gardner in Gaza
Muhammad al-Husainat - a nine-year-old boy who lives in one of Gaza's teeming refugee camps - sings about a boy of the same age, Muhammad al-Durrah , who was shot dead in his father's arms just a short distance from his home.
His family's house near Gaza was next to an Israeli settlement. Each day there were shoot-outs between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers.
Finally, the Israeli army bulldozed their home. Now, says his mother, Muhammad is reliving the nightmare. "When we ask him to go and study, he won't. Instead he starts to draw. He draws tanks, he draws military posts, he draws kids throwing stones. He draws the place where Muhammad al-Durrah was killed" she says. Nightmares and aggressive behaviour Muhammad's family have contacted the Gaza Mental Health Programme and now he is having counselling.
"He has some symptoms like nightmares and aggression. He is exposed to intense fear and he has started walking during sleep" the Palestinian therapist says. Out on the street, in the refugee camps where so many Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, the signs of violence are all around.
The graffiti speaks of tanks and guns, of martyrs and heroes dying for the sake of a free Palestine. First hand experience The violent images are not taken from some comic book - this is what these children see in real life. The director of Gaza's Mental Health Programme, Dr Iyad Sarraj, says over one quarter of Gaza's children are now traumatised in some way.
The trauma of these shattered lives will linger on, haunting those who live here as they grow old. Even if, by some miracle, peace does come to Gaza soon, it will be too late for children like Muhammad. His childhood has already gone. |
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