Amidst the rubble of Gaza, Nawal Asqoul and her staff care for children devastated by genocide

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Khan Yunis Imagine the smoke clearing. Imagine the deafening roar of an air raid dissolving into an oppressive, stifling silence. You turn to call for your mother, your father, your siblings. You search for the walls that protected your childhood dreams, the bed where you slept, the toys you held so dear. But nothing remains. Only a mountain of grey rubble, twisted rebar, and the pulverised remains of everything and everyone you loved. You look right, then left, and a terrifying realisation seizes your fragile mind: you are utterly alone in the world.

The reality of Gaza

Questo scenario da incubo è la cruda, nuda e cruda realtà quotidiana di migliaia di bambini nella Striscia di Gaza dopo tre anni di bombardamenti incessanti, sfollamenti e destruction sistematica.

While international news outlets meticulously document the visible horrors of war – the casualty figures, the levelled skyscrapers, the destroyed infrastructure – an invisible, far more devastating crisis is unfolding in the minds and bodies of Gaza’s youngest survivors. It is a crisis of neurological and psychological collapse.

Scientifically, no human nervous system, let alone that of a developing child, can withstand such complex and continuous trauma without collapsing. Yet, this is the psychological landscape of Gaza today. Recent field studies and psychological assessments conducted within the Strip reveal a staggering and unprecedented statistic: 96% of children in Gaza are now suffering from acute psychological disorders and behavioural trauma. An entire generation is growing up with their inner world completely fragmented, pushing the limits of what human biology can endure.

The birth of “Nawal Gaza”: a sanctuary amidst the ruins

In the midst of this collective psychological breakdown, a local resistance silenziosa. Non è emersa da una ONG internazionale ben finanziata o da una struttura umanitaria sicura. È stata invece ricavata dalle rovine di una casa di tre piani parzialmente distrutta a Khan Younis, a sud della Striscia di Gaza.

The doctor Nawal Asqoul, specialista locale in sviluppo umano e bioenergia, si è rifiutata di restare a guardare mentre le menti dei bambini di Gaza andavano in pezzi. Nel dicembre 2023, le forze israeliane hanno invaso la parte orientale di Khan Younis, occupando e devastando il suo quartiere per quattro mesi, lasciando la sua casa parzialmente bombardata e saccheggiata. Quando l’esercito si è ritirato, la dottoressa Asqoul non è fuggita. Ha sgomberato le macerie dal piano terra e ha trasformato quello spazio segnato in una ferita nella scuola “Nawal Gaza” — la prima iniziativa di volontariato nell’enclave devastata dedicata interamente alla cura dei bambini affetti da gravi disturbi psicosomatici e Selective mutism causati dal trauma di guerra.

96% children in Gaza are now suffering from severe acute psychological disorders and behavioural trauma.

Operating with a virtually nil budget and extremely limited resources, this basic shelter has rapidly transformed into a fundamental lifeline. Today it offers Psychological rehabilitation specializzata, supporto emotivo e istruzione alternativa completamente gratuiti a quasi 1.200 bambini sfollati.

“Nawal Gaza” deals with a hidden epidemic: psychosomatic illnesses. These are serious physical disorders – such as acute respiratory distress, speech paralysis, chronic pain and motor dysfunction – which do not have an organic medical cause, but are instead the physical manifestation of the body of profound, unexpressed psychological terror.

Children struggling to make their voices heard

Stepping through the doors of this makeshift centre means facing a battlefield where the casualties are silent. The specialists here don't treat shrapnel wounds; they seek to rewire nervous systems frozen in fear. The individual case files of the children who enter the programme tell a disturbing story of survival.

Ahmed: the boy silenced

Ahmed Selim, di sette anni, era un bambino vivace e loquace. Tutto è finito la notte in cui un attacco aereo ha devastato la casa della sua famiglia nella città orientale di Khan Younis, costringendoli a fuggire sotto il fuoco verso un sovraffollato campo profughi vicino al Complesso Medico Nasser. L’impatto fisico è stato devastante, ma il danno psicologico è stato totale. Ahmed ha sviluppato ciò che gli psicologi definiscono “mutismo selettivo”. The same was immediately reported by Mohammed, whose story we had told on Kritika months ago.

Il trauma gli ha letteralmente paralizzato le corde vocali. Per mesi, Ahmed non ha pronunciato una sola parola, rinchiuso in una prigione interiore di silenzio. Inoltre, il suo trauma si è manifestato fisicamente; il suo petto si stringeva, lasciandolo senza fiato in attacchi di iperventilazione cronica ogni volta che sentiva un rumore forte o un drone in lontananza.

“Every time Ahmed manages to pronounce a new letter, it feels like we're winning a victory over the war itself,” says Amal Hamdan, a local specialist in rehabilitation and special education at the school. Through months of patient and resource-scarce speech therapy and breathing exercises, Ahmed has slowly begun to regain his voice. He can now breathe normally, and his first hesitant words are considered by staff to be monumental triumphs of human resilience over the mechanisms of war.

Karam: The biological transformation of terror

Then there is six-year-old Karam Abu Shanab. Displaced from the eastern borders of Khan Younis, Karam's young eyes have witnessed horrors no adult should ever have to see. He has faced the scattered remains of neighbours, seen blood-stained stretchers whiz past him, and endured years of constant, simmering panic.

Prolonged exposure to such extreme violence had a terrifying effect on Karam; it reshaped his biology and behavioural patterns. When he arrived at the centre in January, Karam was locked in a state of severe cognitive regression and profound mental distraction. He had lost basic developmental skills appropriate for his age. Even more alarmingly, his unexpressed terror manifested as extreme, uncontrollable aggression towards other children, accompanied by involuntary, self-harming physical tics.

“The horrors Karam witnessed were directly reflected in his body and behaviour,” explains Iman Ali, the school's Arabic and Islamic Education teacher. “He developed dangerous physical habits and became hyper-violent as an unconscious defence mechanism. His ability to understand or absorb schoolwork had completely disappeared.”.

Under Iman's specialist care, Karam undergoes targeted emotional release sessions, designed to safely discharge trapped adrenaline and anger from his system, guiding him slowly towards academic assimilation and social peace.

Abdul Rauf: reigniting the energy for living

Il centro segue anche bambini come Abdul Rauf Sobh, che è entrato nell’iniziativa mostrando profondi segni di letargia, grave distacco emotivo e depressione – uno stato in cui il bambino semplicemente si chiude in se stesso per proteggersi dagli orrori circostanti. Dopo aver seguito terapie personalizzate di bioenergia e decompressione psicologica guidate dal dottor Asqoul, Abdul Rauf ha mostrato un notevole e graduale risveglio, dimostrando che un intervento psicologico immediato e specializzato può interrompere con successo il danno neurologico permanente.

Voices from the front line of the mind

The educators and therapists at “Nawal Gaza” are working at the absolute limit of human endurance. They are themselves secondary survivors, having endured the same displacement, hunger, and loss as the children they are caring for, yet they show up every day to absorb the trauma of a generation. Their insights form a chilling diagnosis of Gaza's future.

Amal Hamdan, a specialist in rehabilitation and special education, says: “With the most primitive and humble tools, we are trying to rebuild the language centres in the brains of these children. When a child under our care finally speaks, it’s not just about learning to read the alphabet; it's a declaration that their nervous system is reacting, refusing to succumb under the weight of destruction. We are teaching them how to exist again.”

Iman Ali, a language teacher and educator, adds: “The psychological burden of seeing body parts and constant death has destroyed these children's ability to concentrate. They discharge their fear through violence because they don't have the vocabulary to explain that they are terrified. Seeing a boy like Karam slowly lower his defences, stop hitting his classmates and smile for the first time in years: this is our true reward in the midst of this siege.».

And finally, the words of Nawal Asqoul, founder of the initiative, provide the deepest sense of the undertaking: “The enormity of the agony that these children have experienced directly translates into physical and psychological illnesses. But the most alarming phenomenon we are fighting here is what I call ‘The Time Gap’. Due to the catastrophic shocks caused by death, loss, hunger and fear, the cognitive and emotional development of Gaza's children has literally frozen at the exact moment of their initial trauma. We welcome children who are chronologically six years old, but their emotional intelligence, their awareness, and their expressive abilities are completely stuck at the level of a four-year-old child. They have lost basic motor skills and the fundamental ability to articulate their human needs.”

Dr. Asqoul observes that the crisis is exacerbated by forced and unnatural maturity. “As so many families have lost their fathers and primary breadwinners, these young children are abruptly deprived of their innocence. We see seven-year-olds walking for miles under a scorching sun, carrying heavy jerrycans of water, foraging for fuel, and bearing the financial anxieties of an entire family. They are living adult lives with the nervous systems of infants. Healing this profound spiritual, intellectual, and physical imbalance will require decades of continuous, global effort.”

A cry to the world: save their minds before it's too late

The profound crisis gripping the children of the Gaza Strip after three years of incessant trauma goes far beyond the traditional parameters of humanitarian aid. The global community has become accustomed to viewing Gaza through the lens of material deprivation, discussing the number of aid trucks, the distribution of tents, and the provision of food parcels. But grain and plastic sheeting cannot heal a shattered brain.

The 96% of Gaza’s children – that is to say, almost every single child walking through the dust of Gaza – carries within them an internal wound that is bleeding within their very being, threatening to derail their future forever.

If over the last three years the world has failed to protect the physical bodies of these children, safeguard their schools, and defend their right to a peaceful life, today it has an urgent and unavoidable moral and legal obligation to prevent their minds from collapsing entirely.

Iniziative di base come la scuola “Nawal Gaza”, che opera in aule crivellate di proiettili e cura 1.200 bambini con nient’altro che pura devozione, sono eroiche, ma non possono portare da sole il peso di un’intera generazione. La riabilitazione psicologica non è un lusso secondario di cui occuparsi dopo la fine della guerra; è un’Medical emergency which requires prompt intervention. Ignoring the psychological and neurological destruction of Gaza's youth means ensuring the ultimate ruin of an entire society long after the fires have ceased to burn. The world must listen to the silent scream of Gaza's children and act to save their minds before the darkness becomes absolute.

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