How mental health experts are handling the Israel-Hamas war’s lasting impact on children

Amna Nawaz:

Well, it's clear that the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war is far-reaching, and the damage from the conflict will be felt for years to come.

Hamas' attack on October 7 and Israel's counteroffensive since have left thousands dead and caused immense physical destruction. It's also left an indelible mark on the collective psychology of an entire region, and especially its children.

William Brangham has the story of a program trying to address that problem.

William Brangham:

The Binational School of Psychotherapy launched about seven years ago trains postgraduate students to care for traumatized children, this in an area with seemingly endless conflict.

The trainees are a mix of Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis and Palestinians all learning together. I recently spoke to the program's two directors, Esti Galili-Weisstub, who is a Jewish Israeli, and Shafiq Masalha, a Palestinian Arab Israeli.

Thank you both so much for joining us today.

Obviously, it's impossible to encapsulate everything that young people are absorbing and seeing and experiencing in the midst of this war. But I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the kinds of challenges that these professionals will have to deal with trying to help children who are living through this experience.

Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub, Co-Director, Binational School of Psychotherapy: When children suffer from extreme trauma, as they are, they are damaged in a multifunctional way.

Their concentration is damaged, so their intellectual abilities are damaged. Their ability to create, their ability to imagine, they are all damaged. The anxiety shows up as behavioral problems, as problems with connecting with the others, or with feeling safe, being able to enjoy play.

It's like basically having something of an iron cast kind of stifling all your mental and cognitive functions.

Dr. Shafiq Masalha, Co-Director, Binational School of Psychotherapy: At this time in the war, we are counting the number of people who are dead or injured, but we do not really have any idea now about the psychological harm that's going on and that will show itself very soon.

I'm very afraid that the next generation of the Palestinian people in Gaza will be really suffering from this trauma.

William Brangham:

As the war grinds on, Masalha and Galili-Weisstub have continued the program remotely. Both Israeli and Palestinian students have also kept working in their communities, even though some have lost loved ones themselves.

There are two trainees living in Gaza, and the directors have had only sporadic contact with them.

Dr. Shafiq Masalha:

In the beginning, at least in the first month, they were just helping in distributing food and all other…

Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub:

Physical needs, physical immediate needs.

Dr. Shafiq Masalha:

Yes.

You know, our students and mental health professionals who are well-trained, they have a different language even when they talk to people around, to children around. I mean, it's a different attitude. So even if they don't do pure clinical work during times of war, their language is different and there's influence.

Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub:

Because the number of people that are exposed to trauma or experiencing immediate threats is so large, we don't have the ability for meaningful one-on-one ongoing therapy.

So, mostly it's group intervention, parent guidance, some one-on-one crisis intervention. It's not actual therapy. But even those small interactions are meaningful, because they are aimed to strengthen the child or the adolescent, support his family and to give them a little bit of hope and understanding that it is a process. And, hopefully, they will come out of the other side, just saying you're not alone, we're trying to listen to you, we're trying to do the best we can.

The situation, as Shafiq said in Gaza, is in a different scale, so there is no ability but to deal, and I don't know exactly how they do it, with communities. But we really hope that better days will come and we will be able to offer therapy again.

Dr. Shafiq Masalha:

Most people interviewed talking about this war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they talk in historical or political terms. And very few talk in psychological terms.

Like, there are two people who are traumatized, who are acting from the place of trauma, feeling under threat all the time, feeling anxious all the time, feeling that their existence is in danger. So this is exactly what happens to the individual who is suffering from trauma.

We believe, if there were two individuals, we would be able much more to help them. But because it's a mass psychology, it's more difficult.

William Brangham:

The directors also believe that, by bringing Israeli and Palestinian practitioners together, they can help two traumatized communities start to heal.

Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub:

We really believe that by strengthening the empathic ability to the other is our only hope to ever bridge and build something together.

If you look into in-depth psychology, the importance of being empathic to parts that are difficult are the most important part of the therapeutic process. But, here, I must say that it is almost physically painful to sit and to realize how hard it is for the other, and at the same time being scared and being worried and being ashamed and being angry and being, I think, all the myriad of feelings that we have to deal with as students and as supervisors.

Right now, the emphasis is on relating to the others, even in times of war, realizing that we are going to share the same piece of land, so relating to the other is actually our future.

Dr. Shafiq Masalha:

Our students have — especially the Palestinian students, have to cope with a lot of resistance in their communities joining a joint group of Israelis and Palestinians.

They live in a very small piece of land, but they live with a lot of boundaries, physical boundaries of meeting each other and psychological boundaries. So they really don't know each other as human beings. There's a lot of dehumanization. The other is an enemy. You know, I can't talk to the other person.

So this is the feeling of the vast majority of both sides. So, in this case, we created an island, I think, that, within the last 20 years, I believe that there's not such a place where Palestinians and Israelis equally go through the same program and meet each other.

And they have a group process that helps them to process their own relationships. It's not only learning material, but we need to create more events like this.

William Brangham:

All right, Dr. Shafiq Masalha and Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub, thank you both so much for talking with us.

Dr. Shafiq Masalha:

Thank you.

Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub:

Thank you, William, for having us.