Even before the war in Gaza broke out, people in the besieged Palestinian territory had some of the world’s worst rates of mental illness.
Israel and Egypt’s blockade of the Mediterranean strip is now 17 years old; a generation has grown up knowing nothing but cyclical escalation, a dire lack of public services and next to no freedom of movement. Research published by Save the Children in 2022 found that four out of five children in Gaza said they live with depression, grief and fear, and three in five were self harming.
