A generation in danger of being lost

On a little patch of grass, surrounded by mountains of rubble that were once their homes, 12 children sat in a circle on a rainbow-coloured blanket as they drew images on crayons.

They quickly filled the white pages passed around by trauma counsellors with pictures of fire-spewing Israeli tanks, dead bodies and Palestinian gunmen firing assault rifles, scenes they witnessed when Israel's war on Gaza came to their neighbourhood.

"We felt we would die soon," 11-year-old Sharif Abed Rabbo told the group, describing his family's escape. "And I am sad I lost my home."

Psychologists say Israel's three-week military offensive inflicted more severe trauma than previous conflicts in Gaza because civilians didn't have a safe zone.

A wartime study among hundreds of Gaza children indicated a rise in nightmares, bedwetting and other signs of trauma, said psychologist Fadil Abu Hein.

Beyond the immediate damage, counsellors and aid workers fear that Gaza's children, who make up 56 per cent of 1.4 million people here, will become easier prey for extremists.

"Israel now created hatred in this generation, which means it will be difficult in the future to convince those children to build peace with them," said Abu Hein, who runs a community health centre in Gaza City.

"We are losing the next generation," added John Ging, the top UN aid official in Gaza.

As a buffer against militancy, UN schools are launching human rights classes for their 200,000 students this week.

Children and teens were particularly vulnerable in Israel's military offensive, launched December 27 to try to halt Hamas rocket fire on towns in southern Israel.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights counted 280 children among 1,285 dead and said one quarter of the estimated 4,000 that were wounded was a minor.

Facing the Israeli invasion, tens of thousands fled their homes during the onslaught, seeking shelter in UN schools.

Among the refugees was Ansam Rahel, 10, who fled shelling of her home in the town of Beit Lahiya and sought cover, along with her family, in the town's UN school. On January 17, when an Israeli shell struck the shelter, Ansam was hit by shrapnel that sliced across the top of her head.

A thick welt of stitches runs diagonally across her partially shaved head, and she covers it with a black ski cap.

She carries herself with grace and is back home, but her life has changed.

Her father is in Egypt, where her 5-year-old sister Dima is undergoing treatment for a serious war injury.

Ansam said she takes painkillers and doesn't sleep well because her head hurts. She briefly returned to her school to say goodbye to friends. She is not well enough to attend and was told by school officials she might eventually be taken to France for further medical treatment.

"I didn't let them cry or feel pity for me," she said of her classmates.

Abu Hein, a psychologist, said his teams interviewed 950 families, among them 2,180 children, in UN shelters across Gaza during and after the war. Many parents reported signs of trauma in their children.

For example, a majority said their children had become more clingy, and about one-third said their children insisted on sleeping in the same room as their parents.

Since a ceasefire took hold a week ago, Abu Hein's centre and other aid groups have sent teams to the most devastated areas, seeking out the children for emergency counselling.

On Sunday, three of his counsellors drove to the Abed Rabbo neighbourhood of the town of Jebaliya, a few hundred yards from the Israeli border.

The neighbourhood came under heavy fire from tanks and aircraft during Israel's ground offensive.

The counsellors spread a large blanket on a small patch of grass, and children soon came running.

About two dozen, from toddlers to young teens, sat down in a circle.

They played a few games, raising their hands or clapping, to break the ice.

One of the counsellors then asked the older kids to tell what happened to them during the war.

Asra Aref, 8, said her father raised a white flag when soldiers came closer and spoke Hebrew to them.

"The soldiers told him he has just five minutes to evacuate the house," she said.

Then he distributed paper and crayons and asked the children to draw.

The youngest ones just managed a few squiggles, but almost all the drawings of the older ones included tanks, helicopters or bodies sprawled on the ground.

One boy depicted a Palestinian gunman firing an assault rifle at a tank. In another picture, two blue dots were meant to show land mines planted under tanks.

At one point, 5-year-old Saja Abed Rabbo, in pigtails and pajamas, started crying.

For Zakariya Baroud, a 14-year-old Palestinian, the trauma is all too real. Zakariya lost three of his classmates in an Israeli mortar attack that killed 42 people, most of them civilians, near a UN school in the Jebaliya refugee camp. Israel claimed at the time that troops were firing at a Palestinian rocket squad in the area.

Zakariya rushed to the scene of the shelling after hearing the huge booms. He said he saw bodies strewn across the main road, including that of his best friend, Bashar Deeb, with a deep gash in his throat.

His father, Baker, who spent eight years in Israeli prisons after being imprisoned for resistance activities, said he'd like Zakariya to attend university, but wouldn't talk him out of taking up arms.

"He is seeing suffering right now," he said. "For 22 days, we were not able to sleep. He has witnessed the events by himself, so he, by himself, hates Israel."

- Bilal Badwan is a journalist based in Gaza