‘We tell them they can still laugh’ – the doctor treating the mental scars of Gaza’s children

The head of a charity in the strip helping people traumatised by the conflict explains why he still has hope for the future

Dr Yasser Abu Jamei is an unlikely optimist, a psychiatrist running the biggest mental health charity in Gaza, where four out of five children live with depression, fear and grief.

The 365 sq km (140 sq mile) Palestinian enclave on the Mediterranean – a tiny strip of land regularly bombed, heavily blockaded and desperately poor – has provided a grim laboratory for testing how repeated trauma affects the human mind.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/GsqQP8H