GCMHP And IRCT Issue Joint Statement On MH IN Gaza Under The Ongoing Genocidal War

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) has issued a joint statement with the International Rehabilitation Centre for the Victims of Torture (IRCT) to explain the impact of the war on Gaza and the unprecedented multitude of violations against human rights including carnages, systematic targeting of shelters, mass arrests, torture, executions, displacement and starvation, and the impact of such a situation on the mental health of the victims.

The statement has highlighted the need for prioritizing mental health support, direly needed by the community which is experiencing the worst human crisis in contemporary history.

The psychological wellbeing of almost everyone in Gaza has been negatively affected as all people have directly been affected by the situation. However, people who lost loved ones, have had life-changing injuries, or those who have experienced arrest and torture, have developed serious mental health symptoms or disorders. 

GCMHP’s PFA teams, through their visits and interventions with the displaced people and victims, have observed that the psychological wellbeing of the population is on the line, and that there is a whole generation of children whose mental health, and therefore their future social role, might be badly affected.

Thus, GCMHP and the IRCT have taken the opportunity of the World Mental Health Day to underpin the dire need for recruiting all efforts to prop up the mental health sector and alleviate the suffering of the affected people as a human right obligation.

To download the full statement