Author’s Statement
A lot of the work I have done throughout my years at Western Washington University has been oriented towards Palestine and the occupation. I wanted to find a way to talk about disability in the context of Palestine, it was something I thought of a lot throughout the course. As a Palestinian woman and activist, I see a lot of disability in the context of war. Children, adults, seniors who peacefully protest for the right to their land and end up getting attacked and physically disabled as a consequence. I became curious about how disability effects people as a result of violence. What are the effects on children? What is medical treatment like if it is so sparse? How many people end up disabled due to occupation in Palestine? I decided to narrow my focus to the Gaza strip, the most impoverished and targeted region in Palestine. My aim with this paper is to widen my understanding of disability in the context of war as well as connect with readers on an emotional level about the topic through a creative essay. I learn best when I can personally connect or become emotionally touched and so I would like to try to get my readers to connect on that level as well as through a factual, analytical essay.
Disability in Gaza
Disability is not a topic that is typically studied within the school system in the United States. While many of the people around us are affected directly and indirectly by disability, it is not often we here about the experience of those with disability. Due to this lack of knowledge, it is difficult to take on an advocacy role for the disability community. In this paper, I will be taking a closer look at disability caused specifically by warfare and violence and its effects on mental health on the people of Gaza.
Palestine has been under Israeli occupation for the last 73 years. Throughout this occupation, Israel has broken 23 international laws of warfare, which are created and enforced by the United Nations, repeatedly. These include the targeting of children, elderly, and people with disabilities, the use of illegal weapons, chemical warfare, and more. An example of this can be found in an article by Human Rights Watch, “A March 2019 UN Commission of Inquiry report found that Israeli forces fired on people with disabilities, among other identifiable groups, “knowing who they are,” although protesters did not pose an imminent threat in the vast majority of cases they investigated, making those killings unlawful.” (Human Rights Watch). Consequently, many Palestinians acquire physical disabilities because of violence and to make it even more dire, they do not have access to the medical care that they need due to the fact that Israel decides what materials, medicines, and people enter and exit the Palestinian territories. I will be looking at the occupied territory of Gaza, a sliver of land that now serves as a large, open-air prison for about two million people. The people of Gaza cannot leave by land, if they come within fifteen feet of the fence, they are shot and killed. If they try to leave by boat on the Mediterranean Sea and their boats will be shot down by the Israeli enforced barricade along the coastline and survey it twenty-four hours a day. With less than 4% of the water being drinkable, constant bombings, and electricity that only lasts four hours a day (if that), surviving is almost impossible, let alone living.
Let’s start out by looking at a few statistics. Statistics on warfare in Palestine are very difficult to find due to the fact that people and information are not allowed in or out of Palestine under Israeli imperialism. AlJazeera, a Middle Eastern news website writes, “About 48,000 people in Gaza, or about 2.4% of the population, have a disability. More than one fifth are children.” (AlJazeera). If you do the math, this means that of the two million people in Gaza, 9,600 are disabled children being overlooked by Israel and the United Nations. According to the Human Rights Watch, “The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) notes that 498,776 Gaza residents, or 25% of Gaza’s population, experience psychological distress and have a mental health condition.” (Human Rights Watch). It can be inferred that a lot of that psychological distress is caused by living in danger every day while also trying to find ways to survive. They have to worry so much about where their next meal is coming from, or when they will have access to electricity for heat and light, the basic needs a human has and because of that, they cannot focus on healing their trauma and instead it becomes worse. This results in mental health issues that can become debilitating quite quickly without the help of professionals. The Human Rights Watch also notes, “In 2018 and 2019, according to the UN OCHA, 156 Palestinians had limbs amputated after being wounded by Israeli fire during demonstrations along the fences separating Gaza and Israel” (Human Rights Watch). This is only one form of violence among many.
A lot of the issues that people with disabilities face are made significantly more difficult, sometimes impossible, due to the occupation. The first example of this is lack of electricity, “The effect of recurring power cuts on people with disabilities who need light to communicate through sign language, or electric lifts or scooters to get around.” (AlJazeera). With getting little as four hours of electricity a day, due to Israeli control of the only power plant in Gaza, it makes it difficult for people who are visually or audibly impaired to communicate with those around them. This becomes a large problem when the people of Gaza are constantly at risk of being bombed throughout the day. If one cannot see or hear the bombs and they have no light to communicate through sign language with people around them, it becomes a large complication in terms of their safety as well as their mental health. Without being able to communicate with others, people are also isolated and separated from their community and their support system. Not to mention the fact that those in electric wheelchairs are incapable of moving around for days at a time. With no means of transportation, how are they supposed to take care of themselves and their families? The many restrictions, especially those on supplies and travel, placed on the Palestinian territory also takes a large toll, “The restrictions prevent people from getting training and prevent outside experts from entering Gaza.” (Human Rights Watch). Doctors cannot be trained to give medical care to those that need it and if they did have the training to do so, finding the medical supplies is another hindrance they face. The lack of access leads to a lack of medical support that many need in order to survive, especially those constantly being threatened by violent acts. Without that support these people cannot stay healthy, let alone thrive and find joy in life. They do not have the means to succeed or to be given the chance to thrive, “The Israeli-imposed electricity crisis, shortages of assistive devices, and an inaccessible physical environment, block people with disabilities from living independently and fully participating in their communities.” (Human Rights Watch). We have seen the power that community brings to a person with disabilities’ life. They get opportunities to thrive, to live, to believe in themselves. They have support for any sort of trauma or negative thoughts or feelings towards their disability by being part of a community. This is seen as a luxury in Palestine, something a lot of people with disabilities do not have access too. For a child, traumatized from war with no access to medical assistance, and living in fear being cut off from their community is the cherry on top of a mountain of destructive problems they must face.
Children are also greatly affected by war; it causes mental health issues as well as emotional and physical health. When a child undergoes disability as a result of violence, it will inevitably change them in a physical, emotional, and mental capacity. Nirmala Erevelles writes about the effects of wartime on people within the disability community, “Children exposed to war experience post- traumatic stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms, psychophysiological disturbances, behavioral problems and personality changes, as well as physical traumas resulting from injury, physical deformities, and diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and parasites.” (126, Erevelles). The toll it takes on the mental, physical, and emotional health of a child is dramatic. It can change the way they see the world, cause them to live in a state of constaniut fear. A lot of these mental health issues can also become debilitating and affect their everyday life. R. Srinivasa Murthy records the following statistics, “In a series of studies during the last 10 years from the Gaza Community Mental Health Centre, the most prevalent types of trauma exposure for children were witnessing funerals (95%), witness to shooting (83%), seeing injured or dead strangers (67%) and family member injured or killed (62%).” (Murthy). The majority of children in Palestine suffer from trauma and other mental health issues that affect their everyday life. Disability caused by war causes them to grow up quicker, have a more negative outlook on life, and destroy their dreams of a brighter future. According to this article, at least 10% of these children will be left with mental health issues that will negatively affect their ability to function as a person. Without the assistance to manage and deal with these issues, as well as the physical ones caused by war, they resort to a life of misery and helplessness that they do not have the tools to push through.
In the end, for those that become disabled or are disabled during war and in the face of violence, simply surviving is a challenge. With lack of resources and medical knowledge, it can become impossible to survive, let alone thrive. “The sheer scope of this violence should be difficult to ignore, and yet it is ignored; its invisibility is justified by the imperialist/neocolonial state that aims to regulate and control differences seen as disruptive to the “natural” order of global civil society.” (Erevelles, 131). We need to put a focused light on those struggling with disability that call for the help of others. We cannot turn a blind eye to those who cannot fight for themselves, we must advocate and educate those around us in hopes of making a difference for the lives of these people, these children. They are human and they deserve the attention, support, love, and community that we all do in this life.
Works Cited
Al Jazeera. “Gaza: Life ‘Extraordinarily Difficult’ for People with Disability.” News | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 3 Dec. 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/3/life-in-gaza-extraordinarily-difficult-for-disabled-hrw.
“Gaza: Israeli Restrictions Harm People with Disabilities.” Human Rights Watch, 21 Apr. 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/03/gaza-israeli-restrictions-harm-people-disabilities.
Hall, Kim Q. Feminist Disability Studies. Indiana University Press, 2011.
Murthy, R Srinivasa, and Rashmi Lakshminarayana. “Mental Health Consequences of War: A Brief Review of Research Findings.” World Psychiatry : Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), Masson Italy, Feb. 2006, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1472271/.
Inherently Beautiful
We spend our childhood, our lives, being told what our bodies should look like. That they should be thin and fit, covered in muscle and a delicate layer of tan skin. That women have elegant curves, shaping them to look like a sand filled hourglass. Breakable and ethereal. Men must be made of unbreakable muscle, the six squares on their stomach symbolizing strength and sex. This is what matters the most. The way the body looks in the eyes of the beholder, the way it feels so soft and perfectly smooth when pushed against another. We take hours out of our day to go to the gym, sweat dripping from our bodies as we aim for an unattainable goal. We restrict the food we eat in order to make sure our diet doesn’t hold us back from getting there. We miss out on so much of life trying to fulfill this standard. The one we set for ourselves without asking why? What for?
You know those moments? The ones that seem to wake you up from a dream, one you don’t notice you’ve spent so long stuck in until someone snaps their fingers in front of your face and you’re suddenly awake? Well, I had one of those moments in the beginning of college and it felt like a stinging slap in the face. For me, that awakening came in the form of a film.
Gaza Fights for Freedom, a documentary being shown on my college campus. I was asked to go and answer questions about the occupation of Palestine after the film was shown to a group of students and faculty. I know why they asked me, to me it was just another job I’d been asked to do as a member and a voice for the Palestinian community. A role the school decided I should fulfill based on nothing but the blood running through my veins and the olive color of my skin. I remember how hard it was to watch the film. I remember swallowing the burning vomit rising up the back of my throat as pictures of dead children, their crimson blood creating pools in the cracks of broken, gray cement, filled my vision. I listened to the piercing screams of the children of Gaza as they cried out to a world that never bothered to listen to them. They fought for their right to exist, their right to breathe, the right to be seen as a human being instead of an infectious disease that needed to be wiped out. I remember clenching my sweaty hands until my fists turned white, fighting the urge to cry as I watched these people die, people whose names would never be known, who the world would never mourn.
I remember Ali. Ali is a nineteen-year-old Palestinian, when I looked at his face, at his eyes, he looked startlingly like my cousins. He had a passion for basketball. He played every day with his friends on a broken court covered in dust and debris from bombings. He was an incredibly smart kid, studying history and dreaming of leaving Gaza to attend college and earn a degree. He wanted to provide and save his parents and his siblings so that they might have a better life. Ali decided to join his people at the front lines, peacefully protesting at the wall between Gaza and Israel. He was yelling for his freedom, waving a flag covered in forest green, royal red, clean white, and regal black The flag rippled proudly as the wind blew through it. Ali was standing to tell the world he was there, that he deserved to exist. Ali got shot in the leg with an illegal Israeli made bullet. The bullet erupted in his leg, sending shrapnel through his flesh and muscle, ripping it to shreds. His ears rang, blood was everywhere, pain coursed through his body until it slammed against the cold ground and his eyes closed. The next thing Ali knew, he was waking up in a makeshift hospital, now with only one leg and a small chance of surviving the next few months with no access to medical treatment.
Somehow, Ali survived and for that he was grateful. His amputated leg recovered without infection. During his interview in the film, Ali spoke about his body. The way that he is grateful that it recovered, as sad as he was about losing the ability to walk, to play basketball, his body was still his and his voice still worked. Ali continues to find ways to go to these peaceful protests, even after losing his leg in such a gruesome and cruel way, turning his life in a direction it shouldn’t have gone. Ali said his body was a tool, a means of movement. His tool may have been damaged but that is no reason to accept defeat, to accept misery or pity. I remember salty tears running over my lips as I saw him smile, a kid the same age as me who never took his body or health for granted.
I felt nothing but admiration for Ali. I never felt pity or sorrow. In a way, I was jealous. Jealous that he was wise enough to realize something that I never did. That the body is simply a tool. It’s a vessel for something so much more important, so much more valuable. It’s the casing that holds a bright soul. A soul with a purpose, a soul with a destiny and an impact. The vessel can be broken but the soul remains intact. There is no reason to have sadness or pity when you cross the street and see a child in a wheelchair or crutches. There is no reason to feel pity for someone who’s vessel is a little bit different than our own. Their soul is intact. Their soul is fighting. Their soul is valuable and unchanging. That day I promised myself I would smile. I would forever smile at those society frowns upon, at those that people deem unnatural or unwanted. I will smile, knowing their soul is colorful, bright, and smiling back at me.
I made another promise that day. I promised to appreciate my own body. The way it looks, the way it moves. I will appreciate every scar, every stretch mark, and every step I take. I am lucky enough to have this beautiful casing for my soul. It deserves much more than a trip to the gym every day or a juice cleanse. It deserves ice cream, naps, and to be appreciated for doing what it was always meant to do. To hold my soul. Isn’t that beautiful in itself?