Gazans writing names on children's legs to identify them if they are killed
Some parents in Gaza have resorted to writing their children's names on their legs to help identify them should either they or the children be killed, according to videos filmed by a journalist working for CNN.
The videos are from Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, a district where Israeli airstrikes took place overnight Saturday into Sunday.
They show a toddler and three children who have been killed, bearing their names written in Arabic on their calves. All four are seen lying on stretchers placed on the floor in a room that appears to be a morgue, which is full. It's unclear whether their parents were also killed.
The journalist says the practice has become more commonplace in recent days. There have been chaotic scenes in several Gaza hospitals in the aftermath of air strikes, with insufficient room to handle the influx of patients and morgues overflowing.
The videos show that in parts of the Al Aqsa hospital, which is overrun with patients, the injured people, including children, were lying in corridors on makeshift beds and mattresses on Sunday morning.
The videos also show a stream of patients being brought in on stretchers early Sunday morning. Dozens of people have gathered outside for safety, while others are seen grieving.
The Israel Defense Forces said it will increase its aerial bombardment of Gaza. The IDF's chief of staff also told commanders Saturday that the military will "enter the Gaza Strip" and initiate an operation to take out Hamas, but he did not provide a specific timeframe.
The Israeli military has also escalated its operations in the occupied West Bank, striking a mosque early Sunday to thwart what it called "an imminent terror attack." The Palestinian Health Ministry said three people were killed in the rare airstrike. It comes amid a wave of violence against Palestinians in the territory.
Children traumatised
Children make up about half of Gaza's 2.3 million population, living under near constant bombardment with many packed into temporary shelters in UN-run schools after fleeing their homes with little food or clean water, reports Reuters.
"Children ... have started to develop serious trauma symptoms such as convulsions, bed-wetting, fear, aggressive behaviour, nervousness, and not leaving their parents' sides," said Gaza psychiatrist Fadel Abu Heen.
Conditions in makeshift shelters in United Nations schools, where more than 380,000 people are camped out in hope of escaping the bombardment, only compound the problem.
There are sometimes 100 people sleeping in each classroom, which all require continuous cleaning. There is little electricity and water so bathrooms and toilets are very dirty.
"Our children suffer a lot at night. They cry all night, they pee themselves without meaning to and I don't have time to clean up after them, one after the other," said Tahreer Tabash, a mother of six children sheltering in a school.
Even there, they are not safe. Such schools have been hit several times, the United Nations has said, and Tabash has seen strikes hitting nearby buildings. When her children hear so much as a chair being moved, they jump in fear, she said.
"That lack of any safe place has created a general sense of fear and horror among the entire population and children are most impacted," said Abu Heen.
"Some of them reacted directly and expressed their fears. Although they may need immediate intervention, they may be in a better state than the other kids who kept the horror and trauma inside them," he said.
Mental toll
One house in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, is sheltering about 90 people including 30 under the age of 18, where they have to sleep in shifts for lack of space.
"When there's an explosion or any target getting hit nearby they are always screaming, always frightened. We try to calm the younger ones, try telling them, 'Don't worry, it's just fireworks'. But the older ones understand what's going on," said Ibrahim al-Agha, an engineer sheltering in the house.
"They will need a lot of support mentally after this war finishes," Agha said.
However, Gaza's healthcare system was already over-stretched before this month's war, which has pushed it to the brink of collapse, and mental health experts have long warned of the terrible toll that was already being exacted on children.
A 2022 report by aid group Save the Children found the psychosocial wellbeing of children in Gaza at "alarmingly low levels" after 11 days of fighting in 2021, leaving half of all Gaza children in need of support.
Mental health experts in Gaza have said there is no such thing there as post traumatic stress disorder because the trauma in the enclave is continuous, with repeated bouts of armed conflict stretching back nearly two decades.
Early on Saturday, after an Israeli air strike destroyed a building in Gaza City, killing many of the Abo Akr family, a large group of children stood among those watching rescuers picking through the rubble for survivors and bodies.
As women nearby wailed and wept, the children stood watching, their faces showing nothing.