Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei has worked for over 20 years at the Gaza Strip Mental Health Program, the largest mental health organization in the Gaza Strip, and has been running the program since 2014. Gazans have long faced various psychological problems. Health problems are a result of the Israeli blockade that began in 2007 and frequent bombings and attacks. Since October 7, the Israeli government has prosecuted a military operation that has displaced the majority of the Gaza Strip’s population, killing more than 33,000 people.
I recently spoke by phone with Abu Jameih, who left Gaza for Egypt, arriving about a week ago. We discussed how he has been able to continue his work over the past six months and how he has been working specifically with treating children. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
Could you tell us a little about the history of your work?
The Gaza Area Mental Health Program is a non-governmental organization established in Gaza in 1990. It was founded by the late human rights activist and psychiatrist Eyad El Sarraj. This was during the first intifada, and he was still working in a psychiatric hospital, the only mental health facility in the Gaza Strip. And he noticed that many people were coming to the hospital talking about the challenges their children were facing. These were not mental illnesses that required hospitalization, but rather symptoms of the harsh conditions people were in during his 80s.
He was always thinking about what he could do to help children, their families, and the community as a whole cope with challenges, and how he could lessen the impact of his living environment and profession. He was introduced to the concept of community mental health. It’s basically a multidisciplinary team of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and maybe psychiatric nurses simply working together to create what is now called social psychiatry or community psychiatry. It’s time to serve.
Mr. El-Sarraj started with a few engineers and professionals who joined him to establish the first community center. One of his main goals was to help children and their families who were victims of torture and abuse, or former detainees in Israeli prisons. He also sought to provide counseling and awareness sessions to the community to combat the stigma associated with mental health issues.
When did you become involved in this work?
I joined the company in 2002.
Could you please explain the political context of your activities in Gaza before October 7th?
The first intifada ended with a peace process that led to the Oslo Accords. This is how the Palestinian Authority was established, giving Palestinians some degree of autonomy in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. However, time passed without any improvement. Then, in 2000, the second intifada began. Hamas then defeated Fatah in the 2006 elections. There have been many conflicts between Hamas and Fatah, which ended with Hamas seizing power in Gaza and starting its own ruling regime that is unacceptable to both the Palestinian Authority and the international community.
As a result, the Gaza Strip was placed under lockdown. And in addition to the blockade, Gaza was exposed to many Israeli military operations. Thousands of people were killed and thousands injured. And as mental health professionals, we knew this was an ongoing burden on our communities. We were living in a pressure cooker. And you can imagine the level and scope of trauma that people have been subjected to since October 7th. We would like to bear in mind that more than 1.3 million people in the Gaza Strip are currently internally displaced and living in extremely dire conditions.
Where is your clinic located? Is it still available?
We have 3 locations. One is in Gaza City itself, where our headquarters are located. The second one is in Deir Al Bala. The third one is Khan Yunis. What we do know is that our Gaza Community Center was once a six-story building, and now only the first floor remains. Our Deli Alvara Center is still operational but was affected by the destruction of neighboring buildings. The house we rented in Khan Younis burned down and I don’t know if the building is still there, but it is also unusable.
So we rented a few places. One is in the middle of Gaza and the other in Rafah in the south. Through both locations, we were able to offer several services. This is not the best way to deliver what we really want to offer, but the situation is once again only getting worse. Many of my colleagues are worried about their safety. Therefore, we are doing our best considering the current situation.
Did you live in Gaza City?
My house is on the east side of Khan Yunis. I worked at the main office in Gaza City. I was kicked out from the first day. And since December I have been staying in Rafah. I stayed in a shelter, a school, for several weeks. After that, I moved to a tent and spent about three months there.
Were you able to work at all during that time, or did you mainly just move from place to place? What was that like for you?
Well, we tried to continue running our services despite all the difficulties. We are a large organization with around 100 staff and we wanted to make sure there was always someone available to, for example, give medicine to patients or admit people who needed emergency intervention.
At the same time, efforts were made to maintain the toll-free line. It also connected and forwarded calls to partner organizations in the West Bank. For example, counseling services were available and, until the situation worsened, we opened clinics whenever we had the opportunity, unfortunately not in the Gaza City clinic, but in the clinic in Deir al-Balah and the clinic in Khan Younis. I was there. In Khan Younis. Since January, we have been inactive in Khan Younis, but in February we started operating in Rafah.
Another issue was the availability of medicines. We used to procure medicines from a pharmaceutical warehouse, but no medicines could be brought into that warehouse for the past six months. We tried to ask international organizations for help. Last week, we also received other medicines from WHO. There are still a lot of different varieties in short supply and we believe they will be available in the coming months.
One of the challenges was keeping the drug available to mental health and psychiatric patients who needed it. Making medicine available to many of these patients will save lives. We tried it and had some success, but it was no easy task. Most of our staff are internally displaced persons. Some people are living in tents, others in shelters, but we are trying to get by. About a month ago, we started visiting shelters to provide psychological first aid, meet children, and even give them small gifts. Encourage drawing and encourage fun. I’m trying. We have had some success, but again, the conditions we are working in are not the best.
