Concerning the Recent Acts of Zionist Aggression, Brutal Siege and Killing Taking Place Across Palestinian Cities, Villages and Refugee Camps
To our fellow mental health professionals around the world,
A dignified greeting of freedom and justice to our people and to all the peoples struggling for their liberation and protection of their rights.
The Palestine-Global Mental Health Network strongly denounces the brutal actions carried out by the Israeli occupation’s apparatus of soldiers and settlers, against the Palestinian people. Since the start of 2022, the occupation has killed over 100 Palestinians. This settler colonial system has destroyed property and displaced families and imposed a siege on our cities and villages, the last of which culminated in the Israeli siege of Shuafat refugee camp and the village of Annata.
Today, dear colleagues, we direct our appeal to you, in alignment with the beliefs and ideals of our profession. Beliefs in the strength which lies in liberating the human from dire structural circumstances that implicate growth and sustenance. We are aligned with the restoration of people’s agency, sense of control and over their lives. We raise our appeal today considering the recent and ongoing political conditions in Palestine. Our role as mental health practitioners moves from therapists treating the damage and harm of past events and the historical burden of asylum, displacement, detention and dismissal, to witnessing the daily harm and damage practiced on the Palestinian psyche around us, and to which we belong. These forms of settler colonial violence attempt to strip us of our sense of ability, effectiveness and efficacy in shaping and creating our own reality. We are committed towards collective liberation, and in this particular example, Palestinian liberation. We appeal to your solidarity in joining us in our refusal to surrender or resign to violence, and our perseverance in defending our right to justice and dignity.
Over and above the aforementioned abuses, Zionists continue to violate our human rights to life, to dignity, and access to vital services. This settler colony violates and restricts our freedom of movement, exemplified in the over 15 years of their siege on Gaza. These brutal forces attempt to obliterate the Palestinian people. In recent months, we have witnessed an escalation in personal and military aggression and an intensification of the fragmentation of our people through the enforcement of additional sieges. The Israeli arrests of our people across Nablus, Jenin and Jerusalem have increased; whereby concentrating their raids on Palestinians living in refugee camps.
The Shuafat refugee camp, which is surrounded by the separation wall and military barriers, is known to belong to the Jerusalem municipality, whereby its residents carry a Jerusalem residency. In spite of this, Shuafat refugee camp and the adjacent town of Annata have been besieged since last Saturday (October 8th 2022). The residents, comprising 18,000 registered refugees and 130,000 Palestinian people, are prevented from leaving the area. These residents include workers, students, and children who need to leave the refugee camp to go about their daily lives. Additionally, patients have also been restricted access to necessary health services and treatment. This suffocating siege, which has lasted for 5 days, was opposed by the refugee camp's residents. Palestinians, despite their severe suffering, declared civil disobedience to these punitive and brutal Zionist practices.
In addition to the sieges on Shuafat refugee camp, Nablus, Jenin and other Palestinian areas, the occupation forces continue to brutally storm schools with children inside, storming homes at night and before dawn. They have been drowning them with tear gas bombs, resulting in the suffocation of children and the elderly (including a 7-day-old baby). Throughout these events, access to medical aid was prevented. Additionally, the Israeli forces intensified their arrests of children under the age of 10.
The amplified acts of terror, killing and suffocation; the abuse of people at checkpoints; and the lack of safety in any Palestinian area; threatens the decent, stable and balanced life of Palestinian people today and in the future, and jeopardizes their physical and mental health. These horrific acts also violate children and people’s basic human rights for living in a safe environment, which allows for healthy growth and development.
Through this escalation, there was a systematic targeting of civilians by the occupation, including journalists, health workers, doctors and teachers, even while they were performing their jobs. These are not random acts of violence. Rather, these acts are intentionally meant to debilitate and target the humanity of the Palestinians in an attempt to kill one’s vitality and refusal of oppression. The intended outcome is to inhibit the capacity to enact Palestinian rights, instate their dignity and social role in society. Intensification serves to intimidate, annihilate and transform the Palestinian into an apathetic soul, easily subjected to occupation and unable to resist its oppression. According to the settler colony, the only way a Palestinian is allowed to exist is by consuming the occupation’s content and products. Stripping the soul of its natural inclination to act and react is something that we, as health workers in Palestine, reject and refuse to adopt, and we will oppose it from happening to any Palestinian or any person in the world.
The longstanding struggle has proven that our Palestinian people, wherever they are, are active and vibrant people, who will not be complacent, and refuse to become helpless. Palestinian people continue to fight against injustice with their voices, deeds and position. Succumbing to oppression is a means of annihilation, while vitality and mobility are features of mental health and the desire to live the life that we all deserve.
We, as mental health professionals, are aware that the political reality is influential in shaping the human psyche. It is impossible for us, in line with the ethics of our profession, to remain silent about this harm and thus express our condemnation and refusal to accept it. We stress that we cannot help a soul liberate itself from its burdens while we are shackled by the dominance of the occupation’s lethal system. A system that silences the voice of the weak and prevents it from being heard. Taking a position against neutrality is a form of refusing the state of impotence imposed by the Israeli regime. In order to align with truth, justice and professionalism, we take a stand to express our position toward justice as professionals and members of the human society. We deplore and condemn the claim of professionalism by fellow practitioners as they carry out a blatant attack on justice and align themselves with injustice. This was most visible in the recent storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli settlers, who were accompanied by the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson was an active participant in the prevention of Palestinian worshipers from entering and practicing their religious rituals in Al-Aqsa mosque.
In light of this policy to misuse the concept of neutrality, we call on the support of professionals in all our locations across historical Palestine, to be aware of and resist this nefarious policy in all its forms.
We stand with our colleagues in places under attack and siege across Palestine, as well as our colleagues around the world, who are confronting the forces of colonial oppression and attempts to destroy liberatory mental health.
Your colleagues
Palestine-Global Mental Health Network