Learning to cope on battleground of life

BETHLEHEM - There is a little Christmas tree in the second-floor flat where Sana Dawabshe, a former nursery teacher, lives with her husband and two small sons. There is also a Santa Claus figure, behind which a painted sign proclaims "Merry Christmas".

Nothing surprising about that, you might think, particularly since she lives in Bethlehem. But Sana is a Palestinian Muslim.

Sana explains. Her neighbours are Christian Palestinians and her sons - 5-year-old Eyal and 3-year-old Ebal - did not want to be left out. But there is more to it than childhood peer pressure. "I don't think there is a real difference between Christians and Muslims," she adds reflectively. "This is a great thing for tolerance."

Sana's belief in tolerance is something of a triumph of the human spirit. You only have to step outside the steel-panelled front door of her apartment building - which is wholly deserted apart from her family and that of her Christian neighbours - to realise that there is probably no bleaker corner of the town where Christ is said to have been born 2005 years ago.

Overlooking the door are two Israeli military watchtowers, covering a desolate stretch of wasteland. Just 10m away there are two sections of Israel's controversial wall, in grey concrete 9m high.

For much of the past five years, moreover, the Israeli Army has occupied the roof of Sana's home.

The building has been routinely caught in the nightly crossfire between Palestinian militants and Israeli soldiers.

The fact that Sana's flat is in the centre of the building gives some protection, but little comfort.

All of this is terrifying for her children. A shot once went through the bathroom window, forcing the family for a while to confine themselves to the living room and one bedroom.

When Eyal was 2, he woke at 4am to the trauma of a Palestinian grenade exploding in the street below in an ambush on Israeli soldiers, sending shrapnel cascading on to the balcony.

On another occasion a soldier badly frightened Eyal by yelling and pointing a gun at him as he played in the hallway. "His face was pale," his mother recalls. "He was telling me: 'The soldier was going to shoot me'."

Not surprisingly, Eyal is a traumatised child.

What adds to his psychological confusion is that the Israeli soldiers, who have now been moved from the roof of his home, were not routinely intimidating. "We were like neighbours, really," Eyal's mother recalls. "They are our enemy, but they were gentle with us. They played with the boys; they gave them sweets."

No child in the Bethlehem area is unaffected by the psychological trauma of war - bedwetting, nightmares, reluctance to sleep alone, aggression and withdrawal are all too common afflictions here.

These are, after all, the children whose infancy has coincided with the intifada. But those like Eyal near the worst conflict points are the most troubled.

In one sense, Sana is lucky. She is able to send her children to the Ahmad Bin Handal kindergarten, where teachers have been trained to cope with children in trauma.

First and foremost, what the kindergarten offers is what the rest of the world takes for granted as normal life. Just being able to go to school for a few hours a day gives children a sense of routine and normality.

The teachers have been trained to provide activities such as music, art and drama that create a safe and positive environment in the midst of the fighting and conflict outside.

And that builds the relationship with the children which makes the teachers the best-placed people to support those experiencing trauma.

They are also trained to know when problems are beyond them. Where necessary, they refer children to specialists such as medical personnel and mental health groups.

But most often, just providing a supportive environment can address the problems of children who live amid crisis.

The vital thing, says Nabil Sublaban, programme manager at the Early Childhood Resource Centre's East Jerusalem HQ, is to "listen to the child as they express their fears".

They also lay great emphasis on the teachers working with parents, setting a goal for each teacher to visit the homes of five children five times year. A purpose of the home visits is to encourage parents to work with the children on reading, writing, art and even drama "to provide the means for parents to do such activities themselves".

For the traumatised children of Bethlehem it works. "It's excellent," says Sana. "It helps a lot."

- INDEPENDENT