Published: 2 August 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Palestinian children fear “monsters live in Israel”; Israel accuses UN Gaza panel of antisemitism
Facing repeated wars and never-ending military conflict, a 12-year-old Gaza Strip resident developed post-traumatic stress disorder, her parents say. The girl’s condition worsened to the point where she feared day-to-day activities and always sought to remain physically close to her parents.
Recently the girl, whose name remains withheld and who is identified here only by the first letter of her name in Hebrew, “Gimel,” received rare permission to visit Israel with her father in what has been dubbed a “resilience visit.”
Gimel was granted permission to enter by the Coordination and Liaison Headquarters at the Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel.
“Her fears ruled her,” Gimel’s father, who regularly crosses into Israel to work, told Ynet.
“Every time I go into Israel, she fears something will happen to me,” he said. “I tell her again and again there’s nothing to worry about, that I go to Israel to earn a living for us.”
He hoped that seeing Israel and meeting Israelis might help to quell her fears. “Unfortunately, there are children in Gaza who think that there are monsters living in Israel who only want to kill Arabs,” he added.
In other Gaza news, Israel on Sunday demanded that a United Nations' panel investigating its 2021 war with Palestinian militants be disbanded, condemning remarks made by one of its members as antisemitic.
In a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid cited comments by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council commission of inquiry member Miloon Kothari in an interview.
"We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by, whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs, a lot of money is being thrown in to try to discredit us," Kothari said in a July 25 Mondoweiss podcast.
