The Emotional Impact of the Gaza War

Gaza City -- A long-term ceasefire has been reached between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. The truce, ending seven weeks of fighting that has left more than 2,200 people - mostly Palestinians - dead, was brokered by Egypt and began at 7pm on Tuesday.

Hamas said the deal was a "victory for the resistance".

Israel has agreed to ease its blockade of Gaza to allow in aid and building materials, Israeli officials said. 

Destruction is everywhere in Gaza: many homes, mosques, schools, and hospitals have become piles of bricks, glass and metal. Roads have been torn up by military tanks and bulldozers. Cities are without electricity for most of the day. Gaza is in the midst of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and its impact will be felt for years.

“I am 70 years old, and I have not witnessed a war anything like this one,” Muhammed al-Astal said as he showed us the remains of his cream-colored house, which had been levelled by Israeli shells. “This is not war. This is eradication.”

Even international relief organizations, that have been working in hard-hit war zones for years, have expressed shock at the scale of the damage. After visiting Gaza on Tuesday, Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, tweeted “I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before”.

The devastation has been both physical and emotional. The war between Israel and Hamas has had an incredible psychological impact on everyone living in Gaza - especially children.

Christopher Gunness, spokesperson for the the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said today that “we’re now in a situation where this catastrophic human displacement crisis is morphing into something equally disturbing for us, which is a huge homelessness crisis.”

A Palestinian boy writes on a shrapnel riddled backboard at the heavily damaged Sobhi Abu Karsh school in Gaza City's al-Shejaea neighborhood on August 5, 2014. (Mohammed Abed)

The damage from shelling resulted in impact holes through each story of this home. No one was home at the time and all 35 members of the family are safe. (Misha Tulek)

The physiological scars on the nations youth can’t be understated. Imagine being a child in Gaza. If you are just five years old, three times in your short and fragile life you will have been subjected to this extraordinarily terrifying and traumatizing bombardment that we’ve seen in Gaza. The UNRWA estimates that there are about 400,000 children deep in trauma.

As the casualty toll rises from the third major military confrontation between Israel and Hamas in six years, so does concern about the physical and psychological toll of the conflict on these youth.

The United Nations agency in charge of coordinating aid for humanitarian emergencies said 194,000 young Gazans have suffered wounds ranging from broken bones to severe head injuries and damaged limbs that require amputation. Many have lost relatives and homes, and are in need of psychological care.

"The physical toll is obvious. There will be chronic complications changing these children's lives forever," said Dr. Saeed Salah, a pediatrician at Kamal Odwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya. He added: "The psychiatric effect, we won't know for a long time."

In Gaza, children who are just six years old have been through three extraordinarily terrifying and traumatizing wars. The UNRWA estimates that there are about 400,000 children deep in trauma. (Tyson Sadler)

A young man rides his bicycle through Khuza'a in Khan Yunis. Sixty percent of homes were destroyed and two thirds of the residents were left homeless. (Tyson Sadler)

While the global news media focuses on the physical nature of the Gaza War, there is something possibly more serious taking place - which will last much longer - the psychological nature of the destruction.

More coverage of the Israel - Gaza Conflict on Instagram & Twitter at @tysonsadler. 

Chasing (and Tasting) Icebergs in Newfoundland, Canada

The Arctic is warming faster than any place on Earth. And as it warms up, more and more icebergs fall off their mother glaciers into the sea.

I heard that Newfoundland’s Iceberg Alley had been seeing the highest number of icebergs in the past 25 years, so I came to survey and document this destructive yet beautiful phenomenon.

The result of the receding Arctic ice shelf are these stunning Goliaths that can be viewed up close in the Iceberg Capital of the word. Twillingate is one of Newfoundland’s best locations for admiring these glacial giants that break off the ice cap in Baffin Island and Greenland and take several years to float south and ultimately melt into the North Atlantic Ocean.

It was these types of icebergs that sank the Titanic just 400 miles off Newfoundland’s coast.

As National Geographic prepares the 10th edition of their world atlas, the shrinking Arctic ice sheet is one of the most striking changes in the publication’s history.

As the ocean heats up due to global warming, Arctic sea ice has been locked in a downward spiral. Since the late 1970s, the ice has retreated by 12 percent per decade.

According to NASA, Greenland is losing three times as much ice each year as they did in the '90s. Summer sea ice cover is half as big as it was from 1979 to 2000, and some scientists are predicting an ice-free arctic by the end of the decade.

An iceberg off Twillingate, Newfoundland. (Photo: Tyson Sadler)

But how does this happen?

Clean, fresh snow reflects away about 90 percent of the sunlight that hits it. But as the ice softens, its structure changes, lowering the reflectivity and absorbing more heat. As it melts away, more water and land are exposed, both of which are darker, and both of which absorb more heat. This in turn melts more ice, creating a feedback loop that can accelerate quickly.

This cycle is responsible for the increase of ice breaking off northern glaciers and the formation of icebergs.

As the Arctic ice sheet recedes at unprecedented levels, some scientists are testing a theory that the tundra fires in Canada, massive wildfires in Colorado, and pollution from coal-fired power plants in Europe and China sent an unexpectedly thick layer of soot over the arctic region last summer, which settled onto several parts of the arctic ice cap, increasing the amount of sunlight the snow absorbed, which in turn accelerated the melting.

Canada's cold northern waters are a safe haven for humpback whales who travel thousands of miles to feed on the abundant caplin (Photo: Tyson Sadler)

Not so long ago, the storied northern pacific route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean required an icebreaker ship to navigate it.

This summer, people are attempting the passage in kayak.

Tyson Sadler is a journalist and filmmaker currently on assignment in Twillingate, Newfoundland, Canada. Follow him on Instagram & Twitter at @tysonsadler.

Muslims Mark Ashura With Blood Ritual

Shi'a Muslims in Mumbai, India observe Ashura, the anniversary of the death of Hussein ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson at the hands of Umayyad troops in 680AD.

The day falls on the tenth day of the Islamic month of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar.

Hussein is regarded as a martyr by Shiite Muslims, who commemorate his death with fasting and self-flagellation.

Certain rituals like the traditional flagellation ritual called Talwar zani (talwar ka matam or sometimes tatbir) using a sword or zanjeer zani or zanjeer matam, involving the use of a zanjeer (a chain with blades) are also performed.

These are religious customs that show solidarity with Hussein and his family. People mourn the fact that they were not present at the battle to fight and save Hussein and his family. In some western cities, Shi'a communities have organized blood donation drives with organizations like the Red Cross on Ashura as a positive replacement for self-flagellation rituals like "Tatbir" and "Qame Zani".

Shia commonly believe that taking part in Ashura is to be absolved of sin. A popular Shia saying has it that, `a single tear shed for Husayn washes away a hundred sins.`

Dispatches from Tahrir Square