Mom I’m tired I want to die
Shama Tubaili started crying as she looked at herself in the mirror, brushing her hair with a brush.
“I don’t have a single strand of hair left to brush,” Shama told CNN, her hands on her head. “I’m so upset about it. I’m holding the mirror. Because I want to brush my hair. I really want to brush my hair again.”
The brush on her head brought back memories for the eight-year-old from October 7, 2023. She lived with her family in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Back then, she had long hair. She used to go out and play with her friends. But since October 7, Shama and her family have joined the ranks of nearly 1.9 million people who have been forced to leave their homes one or more times. Shama’s family left Jabalia for the first time, moving south to Rafah, under orders from the Israeli military. As the violence continued to escalate, they fled again and took refuge in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, central Gaza.
On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian independence movement Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel. Israeli authorities claim that 1,200 people were killed in the attack. In addition, more than 250 people were taken hostage. The Israeli military launched a wave of attacks in Gaza that same day in retaliation. The Gaza Health Ministry said that more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in their reckless bombing and ground operations. Most of them are women and children. The Israeli aggression was recently suspended for about two months under a ceasefire agreement to end the war.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report in June last year that almost all of Gaza’s 1.2 million children need psychological support; especially those who have repeatedly faced the horrors of war.
Mom I’m tired I want to die
“A generation has been traumatized,” UN human rights chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council a week after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was announced in January. “Children have been killed. Many of them have died of starvation or freezing to death. Some have died before they even took their first breath — at birth.” Doctors last year diagnosed Shama Tubaili’s hair loss as a result of nervous shock, particularly after an Israeli airstrike on her neighbor’s house in Rafah in August last year. Her daily life has been dramatically disrupted since October 7. This may have contributed to her alopecia. Alopecia is a condition that causes people to lose or become bald. A report published late last year by the War Child Alliance and the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management highlighted the severe psychological trauma that the Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused to children. The report surveyed more than 500 caregivers of children in crisis. The report found that 96 percent of children in the situation felt that their death was imminent. Almost half (49 percent) of the children expressed a “wish to die” because of the attack.
Shama’s mental anguish is exacerbated by the taunts from other children about her hair loss. As a result, she rarely leaves the house. Even when she does, she wears a pink bandana on her head.
