West Bank: psychological effects of home invasions by Israeli soldiers
Audio 02:30
A patrol of Israeli soldiers near Jenin, in the West Bank, in May 2020 © Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP
By: Alice Froussard Follow
7 min
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians are subject to arbitrary invasion of their homes by the Israeli military.
Rooted in the violence of the occupation, these invasions are an integral part of the soldiers' routine.
So, several Israeli organizations - Breaking the Silence, Yesh Din, and Physicians for Human Right Israel - published a report on the link between these practices and the psychological harm on Palestinians.
Publicity
From our correspondent in Jenin,
The Israeli army arrived at his home at the end of November for no reason, Mohammad * tells us.
A teacher and market gardener, this 53-year-old father of four lives near Jenin.
That night, a dozen soldiers broke the door and destroyed a large part of his house for four hours.
The whole family was placed in one room, some of the soldiers pointing their guns at them, others searching all the rooms.
Mohammad still does not understand: “
I do not understand.
They were looking for weapons, but I told them that I had never seen weapons, except when passing through checkpoints.
I told them “
You can tell me about tomatoes and zucchini, about students, about education, that I know
”.
But the weapons, we do not know anything, and we do not even believe it
… ”He wants to talk, does not stop, tells how they stole money, his vegetables and try to take the jewels of his wife.
A case that is not isolated
He admits his stress, his fear and explains to us the difficulty of reconstruction.
His daughter, 18, is still traumatized.
“
My daughter sees a psychiatrist, she has to take medicine, but she still has great problems sleeping and concentrating.
She still has nightmares, I hear her scream, and find her all sweating, talking to herself.
She can no longer open her books to study, and at night, she does not sleep: she closes her eyes, wakes up, closes her eyes and wakes up…
”, Mohammad laments.
He and his family are far from isolated cases.
These invasions, says the report (
viewable here
in English), are among the most common operations and for the Israeli army, it is not necessary to have a mandate.
At any time, a Palestinian house can therefore become a target, whether it is to arrest residents, search for weapons, or just to obtain information about the house or to train.
Some of the highest mental health consequences in the world
These invasions, an hour and a half on average, take place mostly late at night, not without violence, which is not without consequences for the Palestinian populations, explains Jumana Milhem, psychiatrist and volunteer for the Israeli organization Physicians for Human Rights. for eight years.
“
They are very stressed, especially inside their house, after these events, they do not feel safe.
Women often find it difficult to resume their normal behavior at home, men become more stressed, more irritated in general.
And that is a mental reaction following the trauma they suffered,
”says Jumana Milhem.
And the resulting negative mental health consequences are among the highest in the world, she says.
Post-traumatic stress with flashbacks, sleep disturbance, hyper-arousal and for children, increased dependence on their parents.
“
And these mental reactions are reactions that we see appearing in communities experiencing collective trauma
,” adds Jumana Milhem.
For these house invasions only add to the chronic trauma Palestinians experience as a result of the occupation.
* The first name has been changed
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