Healing for Gaza
Mental Health for Children and Families in Gaza
We need to raise an initial $1,000,000 USD to prepare ourselves to meet the enormity of the mental health needs of thousands experiencing severe trauma, loss and grief in Gaza. Your support will go towards trauma healing for affected children, families and frontline workers in Gaza.
This campaign is fiscally sponsored by HEAL Palestine, a registered 501(c) (3) non-profit organization.
War Trauma
Since October 7, and after months of bombing and military violence, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is only worsening. The UN’s humanitarian office describes northern Gaza as akin to “hell on Earth.” The human toll is staggering – to date, at least 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, More than 15,000 children killed, and 86,032 wounded in attacks on Gaza since October 7, leaving surviving children and adults traumatized or living in constant fear. Moreover, half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have also lost their homes to mass destruction and are displaced with nowhere to go. Severe shortages of food, water and medical supplies as well as rising public health risks from deteriorating hygiene are compounding their experiences of trauma and toxic stress. The sheer scale of human suffering experienced in Gaza underscores the urgent need for a professional and comprehensive response to help the community heal from severe war trauma and mental health challenges.
The scale of this emergency is unprecedented, and we need your help urgently to do more. Every second counts in Gaza’s mental health crisis. Donate now and give vital and high-quality trauma healing support to children and families suffering unimaginable loss. Your timely contribution will foster healing, and resilience and promote long-term well-being in the community. Together, we can ensure Gaza heals.
All donations are tax-deductible in the US.
Donate
Please give a gift today and help us continue to ensure Palestinian health workers have the life-saving resources they need. Thank you.
About Us
Team behind Healing for Gaza
Healing for Gaza is an emergency mental health intervention for Palestinian children, adults and frontliners affected by the ongoing violence in Gaza.
- Led by trauma psychologist and UN advisor Dr. Alexandra Chen (A.B., A.M., Ed.M., Ph.D., Harvard University)
- Mental health and psychosocial support specialist Hadi Althib
- Advised by Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, Azzam Fakhreddin, Melek El-Nimer, and the founder of HEAL Palestine, Steve Sosebee.
- The project will mobilise a specialised clinical team of Arabic- and non-Arabic-speaking psychotherapists, psychologists,
and psychiatrists rigorously trained in addressing war trauma to providing psychological, mental and emotional healing and strength for- war-affected children and adults
- medical and humanitarian frontliners in Gaza.
Details about the project
Our goal
Our goal is to support the mental health of 1000+ children, adults and frontliners and make a tangible difference by alleviating the devastating psychological impact of the ongoing war at an individual and community level. By serving both the affected population and the healthcare and humanitarian professionals delivering support in parallel, we aim to establish resilience through a coordinated and sustainable clinical foundation that is built to last for Palestinian mental health.
An advisor to Healing for Gaza, Dr. Abu-Sittah describes the profound mental health crisis in Gaza, with over 40,000 lives lost and countless children orphaned. He emphasises the urgent need for trauma therapy and culturally sensitive care to support both victims and health workers amid this ongoing genocide.
Get Involved
Restore mental health in Gaza
Donate
Our clinicians are generously offering remote psychotherapy at reduced rates. Your donation will provide severely needed online psychotherapy for children, families and frontliners; specialised training for clinicians and interpreters to support severe war trauma, grief, loss; and clinical coordination to match patients with appropriate clinicians through a confidential referral system.
Clinician Sign Up
If you are a qualified psychotherapist, psychologist, psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner and wish to dedicate several hours per week to supporting the mental health of children, adults and/or front liners in need, apply here:
Interpreter Sign Up
If you are a non-clinician but fluent in English and Arabic and wish to help us magnify compassionate and secure access for Gazan children and adults to mental health services, apply here:
