Three Years Into Gaza's Genocidal War, Survivors Say Trauma Is Compounding With No Recovery in Sight

Three years into what the author describes as a genocidal war in Gaza, survivors remain trapped in a cycle of psychological devastation that shows no sign of abating, according to a first-person opinion account published by Al Jazeera. The piece, written by Said Alsaloul, argues that the scale of death and destruction has created conditions in which recovery from trauma is not merely difficult but practically impossible, particularly because the violence has continued despite a nominal ceasefire.

According to figures cited in the account, more than 74,000 people have been killed over the three-year period. This total includes more than 1,400 deaths recorded since October of last year, the point at which a so-called "ceasefire" was supposed to take effect. The author also notes that countless additional deaths have occurred that were preventable, attributing them to the collapse of healthcare infrastructure and the lack of access to medical treatment.

Beyond the direct casualties, the article paints a picture of a population living in what it calls permanent trauma. The author, a survivor himself, writes that this trauma cannot be addressed because the underlying violence has not stopped. The piece emphasizes that the psychological damage is not a side effect of the war but a central, ongoing feature of life in Gaza.

International organizations have begun to quantify what the author refers to as a "mental health crisis." Analysis by the United Nations Population Fund concluded that more than one million children in Gaza are in need of psychosocial support. Among those children, 96 percent reportedly feel that death is imminent, a statistic that underscores the depth of fear and despair experienced by the youngest residents.

The mental health toll extends across age groups. The article cites data indicating that approximately 61 percent of adolescents and young adults suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, while 38 percent experience depression and 41 percent experience anxiety. Among adults in Gaza, one study estimated that some 88 percent have PTSD. These figures suggest a society-wide psychological emergency that affects nearly every segment of the population.

The author contextualizes these numbers by noting that Gaza's population had already endured repeated wars before the current conflict. By 2020, after three months-long wars, half of Gaza's children displayed symptoms of PTSD. By 2022, 71 percent of adults had depression. This history means that the current trauma is layered on top of unresolved trauma from previous conflicts, compounding the psychological burden carried by survivors.

What the statistics fail to capture, according to the account, is the lived experience of trauma when the possibility of recovery is not even visible on the horizon. The author describes a form of total, never-ending war that differs fundamentally from previous conflicts. He writes that it overpowers and crushes because it eliminates hope of survival, distinguishing it from the wars of 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021.

The piece invokes literary references to contrast the author's experience with depictions of war in Western literature. He mentions Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" and its descriptions of shelling, gunfire, mangled limbs, and blood-covered doctors. But he argues that death in Gaza is fundamentally different, possessing a specific smell of gunpowder, burning rubble, and rot, a sound of missile whooshes and muffled screams from beneath rubble, and a bodily sensation of pure terror.

The author recounts personal experiences from the first two months of the war. Six houses in his immediate neighborhood were bombed, and 60 neighbors were killed. One bomb fell close enough to burst a wall and windows of his home, injuring his younger sister, his mother, and himself. The bombing was incessant, day and night, with smoke filling the air during the day and phone torches piercing the darkness at night as residents rushed to dig neighbors out of rubble.

He describes specific scenes of horror: a child's body lodged in a shattered wall next to a man's severed hand; lifting the corpse of a baby from under ruins; watching a mother emerge from a collapsed home with blood streaming down her cheeks while smoke-filled faces screamed and neighbors searched through pulverized concrete for their families.

The author also recounts finding his own eight-year-old student, Mohammed, face down in the rubble. He rolled the boy onto his back to check for a pulse but found none. Mohammed had been coming to the author's house for English lessons with his sister. The bombing killed the boy but spared his sister, whom the author pulled out alive. This personal loss illustrates the way the war has inserted itself into every aspect of daily life, including education.

The article describes how trauma manifests physically for the author. He writes that it is stuck in his body like shrapnel, tightening his chest when a drone passes overhead and shaking his hands when he hears gunfire nearby. He reports feeling numb, unable to concentrate, and almost never smiling. These symptoms are consistent with the clinical descriptions of PTSD and depression cited earlier in the piece.

Survivor's guilt compounds the trauma, according to the account. The author writes that the very best and most noble people have been taken away, and he has lost relatives, friends, and students—the brightest, most generous, and kindest among them. He quotes Hemingway's observation that the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places, but those who will not break are killed impartially, including the very good, gentle, and brave.

The author describes how his relationship with reading has changed. He no longer reads to learn or enrich himself but reads to forget, until his vision blurs and sleep overcomes him, as he tries to keep images of death out of his head. Fiction can no longer move or shock him because he has witnessed humanity die while the rest of the world watched indifferently. He asks what could be more fictional than that, suggesting that the indifference of the international community has itself become a source of trauma.

The piece concludes with a note that the views expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance. The account stands as a testimony to the psychological toll of three years of war, offering both statistical evidence and personal narrative to argue that for survivors in Gaza, recovery is not on the horizon. The implication is that without an end to the violence and a massive international effort to address mental health needs, the trauma described will continue to accumulate across generations.