Can Gaza’s children survive its “colonial trauma”?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2024
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For Gaza’s children, there’s no “post” in post-traumatic stress disorder. The trauma is constant and relentless. Many who survived have lost parents, limbs, or both. These kids aren’t playing or going to school - they’re fighting to survive, scavenging for food amid the rubble. So, what future does that trauma leave the children of Palestine with?
In this episode:
- Dr. Samah Jabr (@drsamahjabr), Chair of the Mental Health Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Sarí el-Khalili, Sonia Bhagat, and Amy Walters with Phillip Lanos, Duha Mosaad, Hagir Saleh, Cole van Miltenburg, and our host, Malika Bilal.
Special thanks to our colleagues at ‘Close Up,’ for their original documentary we featured in this episode.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers.
Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
Connect with us:
@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, layers upon layers of trauma lived by the children of Gaza. |
| 0:17.0 | I think that the best way to describe what's going on in Palestine is colonial trauma, which |
| 0:25.4 | is continuous, deliberate, collective, cross-generational. |
| 0:34.1 | Where does that colonial trauma leave future generations of Palestinians? |
| 0:40.3 | I'm Malika Bilal and this is the take. |
| 0:48.3 | When they enter Rafaa, they'll start by killing children. |
| 0:59.0 | When you pass a decomposing body in the street, it feels like you're in a ghost town. |
| 1:05.0 | It's extremely frightening because what happened to these corpses could happen to us. |
| 1:18.6 | Hussam al-Hattar is a 15-year-old Palestinian in Gaza, whose family has been displaced by Israel's bombardments. |
| 1:22.6 | That hasn't stopped him from doing what he can to help those around him. |
| 1:29.8 | I'm from the north of Gaza. |
| 1:32.6 | They call me the Newton of Palestine. |
| 1:35.6 | During the war, we didn't have electricity. |
| 1:38.3 | So I thought I'd light up the place. |
| 1:43.0 | Over the course of the war, he's learned to generate electricity to light his family's tent |
| 1:44.7 | in Rafa, using scraps and household items left behind. |
| 1:49.7 | His inventions have earned him the nickname Gaza's Newton, after the English scientist, |
| 1:54.5 | Isaac Newton. |
| 1:55.5 | I invented the wireless lock, and my last invention was the fan. |
| 2:05.9 | But Husam is still a child living the horrors of war. |
| 2:14.5 | When I'm sleeping and scared, I cover my face and close my ears tightly so I don't hear the sound of shelling. |
... |
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