Antonio Lucas Manzanero
Accredited professor, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and director of the Research Group on Testimony Psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid
The study is very interesting because it uses a longitudinal study to show how the current massacre committed against Palestine by the Israeli Government has had an impact. Longitudinal studies are always very difficult to carry out because the stability of the sample of participants evaluated is affected by the passage of time, especially in the current conditions in the Gaza Strip, where access to the population is very limited due to forced displacement and killings. Maintaining a sample of 677 participants in the three surveys is an enormous effort that should be appreciated.
The results show that the impact of the massacre committed by Israel in Gaza seriously affects the mental health of Gazans, with a prevalence of psychological distress of 67.2% in 2025 compared to 19.5% in 2020, i.e. more than three times higher than before the genocide. The data are consistent with what is expected from other studies that have assessed the effects of armed conflict in Palestine and other countries. Our research group assessed adults, children and adolescents in Gaza after the bombings of summer 2014, finding a high prevalence of post-traumatic symptoms.
The greater resilience of those over 60 and those with higher education is interesting, as is the absence of a relationship with gender.
The main limitation of the study is that the GHQ12 [12-item General Health Questionnaire] was administered by telephone, and that it is a screening tool that only allows for the establishment of possible self-reported impairment and not a clinical diagnosis. The statistical treatment of the data also has limitations. I hope that in the future the authors will publish an article with more data and analysis that will allow for further conclusions to be drawn.
In any case, the results should be taken into account when establishing policies for redress and psychological care for genocide survivors. There is a clear need for psychological care for the population of the Gaza Strip. There are numerous proposals for intervening with this type of population, which has specific characteristics. UNRWA's psychological care programmes in recent decades mean that its experience and knowledge should be taken into account in future actions.