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Children in central Gaza are taking part in virtual reality therapy sessions that mental health workers say are helping ease the psychological strain of two years of conflict.
The program in Al-Zawayda uses custom VR environments to give young survivors a brief escape from destruction and accelerate their recovery, according to operators.
In a modest room in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, children living through two years of war are slipping away on virtual reality headsets that transport them briefly to a world untouched by destruction.
Wearing goggles and holding joysticks, the children experience a few suspended minutes where the noise of bombardment is replaced by digital gardens, beaches and quiet streets.
Mental health workers say the virtual reality therapy program is helping ease the psychological toll of the conflict, offering children an escape while accelerating therapeutic progress.
Inside a white tent pitched on a sandy lot, five boys explore a virtual landscape. One sits in a wheelchair, while the others perch on plastic seats, turning their heads to follow birds, animals and green fields inside their headsets.
A boy lifts his hands as if swatting a fly; another stretches out a hand to touch a digital dog running toward him. “Come, come,” he calls out.
“I see birds,” says the boy in the wheelchair, scanning the environment.
Operators gently adjust the blue TechMed Gaza headset on 15-year-old Salah Abu Rukab, who suffered a head injury during the war.
“We feel comfortable in it, we enjoy it, and through it we enter a garden, spaces with animals,” he says. Asked what he sees, he replies: “It is all trees, nothing but trees, grass and flowers.”
Mental health supervisor Abdalla Abu Shamale said the method has shown strong results over a full year of work with children who have survived amputations, injuries or severe trauma.
“The speed of treatment, recovery and reaching stability using VR techniques was faster than in regular sessions,” he said.
He explained that in regular sessions they usually need about 10 to 12 sessions, while with VR they can achieve results in just five to seven.
A fragile ceasefire has held since Oct. 10, but the psychological effects of the war remain profound. UNICEF spokesman Jonathan Crickx said nearly one million children, essentially all children in the Gaza Strip, require mental health and psychosocial support after two years of conflict.
The World Health Organization says conflict-related injuries are often compounded by trauma, loss and the struggle for daily survival, while mental health services remain scarce.
The VR sessions use customized programs tailored to each child’s physical and psychological condition, aiming to rebuild positive perceptions of the world.
Abu Shamale said children showed a “very, very strong response and extremely positive results” once integrated into the therapy.
Years before the conflict intensified, virtual reality had already offered Gaza’s young people a rare escape from isolation.
With travel largely impossible because of border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt, the digital realm became a window to the outside world for them at that time.
In 2022, Reuters interviewed at Gaza City’s first VR gaming cafe, where owner Firas Al-Khodary said many young customers came seeking a brief escape from the restrictions shaping their daily lives.
“Often, many of the youth who come here to play, they look for an escape from the reality they live in,” he said.
“I move into cities, different places, mountains and oceans, cities that are impossible for us to visit,” said 22-year-old Youssef Al-Qudairi.
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