DEIR AL-BALAH (TIP): Nabila Hamada gave birth to twin boys in Gaza early in the war, in a hospital reeking of decaying bodies and full of displaced people. When Israeli forces threatened the hospital, she and her husband fled with only one of the babies, as medical staff said the other was too weak to leave. Soon after, Israeli forces raided the hospital, Gaza’s largest, and she never saw the boy again.
The trauma of losing one twin left the 40-year-old Hamada so scared of losing the other that she became frozen and ill-equipped to deal with the daily burden of survival.
“I’m unable to take care of my other, older children or give them the love they need,” she said. She is among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggling with mental health after nine months of war. (AP)