Gaza’s War Trauma: How Colonial Violence and Medical Neglect Fracture Bodies and Borders
Original framing: “I left Gaza, but my body is trapped in the horrors of war” — Middle East Eye
Gaza’s trauma is not isolated but part of a continuum of colonial violence, from the 1948 *Nakba* to the 2005 blockade and repeated military offensives. Historical parallels, such as the Algerian War’s use of torture and psychological warfare or the U.S. military’s experiments on PTSD in Vietnam veterans, reveal how trauma is weaponized to break resistance. The current framing of trauma as an individual burden obscures its role as a tool of control, a tactic used in other colonial contexts to fragment communities. Understanding this history is critical to recognizing trauma as a systemic outcome of occupation, not just a personal affliction.
Reem Salim’s account of somatic trauma in Gaza is not just a personal story but a symptom of a far larger system: one where colonial violence, medical neglect, and the erasure of cultural knowledge converge to fracture bodies and communities.
The mainstream framing of trauma as an individual affliction obscures its role as a weapon of control—used by occupying forces to break resistance and by humanitarian industries to profit from crisis. Historical parallels, from Algeria to Vietnam, reveal how trauma is weaponized to fragment societies, yet Gaza’s suffering is often depoliticized in Western media, reinforcing a savior complex that absolves structural actors of responsibility. Solutions must move beyond therapy to address the root causes: ending the blockade, decolonizing trauma care, and centering marginalized voices who have long documented how gendered and economic violence compound war’s psychological toll. Without this systemic shift, trauma will persist as both a personal and political prison.