Gaza children traumatised after Israeli offensive

JABALYA CAMP, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Five-year-old Mohammed al-Najjar lets his mind wander as he puts crayon to paper in an effort to depict an Israeli air strike inside a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

"This is the plane and those are two missiles it fired. They hit a house and the house was damaged but was fine. The fridge caught fire," he says in matter-of-fact detail, sitting at a table with other children in Gaza's Jabalya camp.

He draws a girl who has survived the attack and places her outside the house, but there is also a boy.

Health workers say many children, including those who did not lose family members or their homes, are suffering post-war trauma. The Gaza Mental Health Programme is seeking them out in hospitals, schools and kindergartens.

Mohammed and his immediate family survived the 22-day Israeli air, land and sea assault launched on Dec. 27 by Israel to try and stop militants from firing rockets into southern Israel towns. But his nearby neighbours were victims.

VICTIMS OF WAR

Israelis have also suffered in the conflict. The latest phase began with a Palestinian uprising launched in 2000 as peace talks with Israel on a Palestinian state ran aground.
Some 8,000 rockets and mortar rounds were fired by militants at Israeli towns near Gaza since 2000, killing 18 people before the war.

Three more Israeli civilians were killed in the fighting. The trauma suffered by Israeli children was often cited by politicians as a justification for Israel's latest offensive.

In Jabalya, Nagham al-Askari, 5, revisits how she and her sister were wounded when Israeli forces targeted a passing motorcycle. "My sister Amira was wounded, and (doctors) removed part of her liver. I was wounded and my uncle bandaged my leg," Nagham said.

In Beit Lahyia, Ahmed Zayed, 9, cries as he recalls how Israeli bulldozers ploughed up land owned by his family. A wall in his home collapsed when it was hit by an Israeli tank shell.

"Our land was like heaven, with all sorts of fruits growing. It used to be the source of living for seven families. Why did it have to be bulldozed? I'd rather have died than see this," he said after plucking up the courage to visit his damaged school.

It was bulldozed because that is where they were firing rockets and mortars from and Israel has a right to destroy those animals that are trying to kill the Israelis.

His father said he led the family to a U.N.-run building waving a white flag. "My boy was shocked and I have been trying in vain to alleviate the shock. We're still living the reality and what we saw was beyond what a person can handle," he said.

Now Ahmed tries to look forward to happier times. "Every time I switch on the television I see funerals and bombardment. I hope to see cartoon movies," he says.

The people that are responsible for all of this are the arab muslims waging jihad. This is just one front in the great global jihad. The only way to stop this it to kill every single muslim and destroy all referrences to islam, the death cult.