Children at new special needs school suffer trauma from Hamas attacks

The tables in the atrium of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem were set up with fingerprinting powder, coloring pages and sheets of cardboard origami ready to be shaped into a police car by little hands. Child-sized police uniforms were at the ready in a nearby wooden box.

Members of the police community outreach department had come to spend the morning with the Oz Field School for children with special needs from evacuated communities in Jerusalem.

The school was opened Nov. 8 in a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Education, the Municipality of Jerusalem, IsraAid, the Feuerstein Institute, the museum and the Yuvalim School—a special education school in Jerusalem—which has loaned its principal Pnina Peleg Cohen and four teachers to the effort.

“The school was constructed from ground zero in four days. It is built on a lot of good people giving of themselves,” said Reut Zohar, assistant principal of the Oz School. The team from IsraAid came on Nov. 7, consulted with the school staff on what materials were needed and by the next day everything was in place, she said. “They told us the students would be special education children, but we did not know who would arrive. The first day we had six children.”

When the students first came to the school, she said, it was like “letting a lion out of the cage” as the children reveled in the open space where they could meet with other children.

Hamas's attack continues to impact the lives of Israelis

On Thursday, the fingerprinting station was a big hit with the children, and others were busy with the coloring pages, but with all the activity, one little girl who had been especially anxious all morning began to cry. The terrorist attack that morning, Nov. 30, was near the hotel where she is staying with her family and she needed her pacifier. A volunteer helped her get to a quieter space until she calmed down.  

“We don’t know if some of the behavioral issues existed before, or if they are a result of what the children have gone through,” explained Peleg Cohen. “But with special education children the events they are going through increase the anxiety and pressure they are feeling and broadens the complexity.”

Another boy quietly slipped out of his chair and hid underneath the table where other children were working on the origami police cars. He hugged a knee to his chest and looked out into the world. Teacher and parent liaison Tamar Meitlis spied him and asked if he would like to try on some police uniforms. He took her hand as she led him to select a uniform shirt, and he was pleased to have a photo taken with a police officer.

“He was having a hard time at the origami station,” explained Meitlis. With both speech and communication disabilities the boy was not able to express what he needed, she said.

If having a stable framework is important for children in general, it is all the more so for children with special needs, said Peleg Cohen, and the school, which is equipped to absorb 30 children from kindergarten to eighth grade, emphasizes consistency with staff and volunteers.

They don’t know how long the school will be functioning, but her team will be there for as long as needed, she said.

“These are children who have gone through a lot of changes in the past two months. They have all experienced some sort of traumatic events, the sirens, bombings, sitting in the shelters,” added Meitles. “Special education children especially need their routine and stability. That got all messed up.”

As much as possible they try to be in touch with the children’s regular teachers in order to consult with them and provide continuity in the treatments they receive, Meitles said.

The special needs gamut at the school runs from children with autism, communication disorders and behavioral problems. Therapists from the Yuvalim School, including the movement therapist, bibliotherapist and animal therapist come in to Oz School to volunteer once a week as well. 

“The children’s lives have been so erratic right now, living away from home in hotel rooms, we have asked the volunteers to have a stable schedule and we also have built a stable class schedule. What the children need most now is stability, a feeling of security and a workspace,” said Peleg Cohen. The teachers meet after every school day to review the day for each child and see what worked, and what didn’t work, she said. “Sometimes we make mistakes and then we correct ourselves. If something doesn’t work, we try something else.”

Some children with special needs who have been evacuated to Jerusalem have been integrated into special education classes at municipal schools, but when there are 10 kindergarten-aged children needing a frame work all at once, it is impossible to find places for everyone, she noted and so there is a need for such a “field school.” 

Parents entrusting their children to the school

For parent Liat Gutkin the flexibility, quiet and patience the school has shown her son Dor, 9, is especially important. Originally from Kibbutz Or HaNer, along the Gaza border, her family spent almost 12 hours in the safe room on Oct. 7 as members of the kibbutz emergency squad fought alongside the emergency squad of neighboring Kibbutz Erez to thwart the infiltration of Hamas terrorists into Kibbutz Erez. 

All children who have experienced such trauma will need time to heal, she said, and for Dor the trauma of the emergency evacuation from his normal environment initially caused him to have violent reactions for the first two weeks which the kibbutz members spent in Tiberias. So it was important for her when they arrived in Jerusalem that he have an educational framework which would not be afraid of any of his reactions, she said. After being referred to one special education school by the Jerusalem Department of Education, Gutkin decided the format was too rigid for her son. A friend then told her about the Oz School which had just opened.

“It was very quiet, and the staff was very warm hearted,” she said of her first visit to the school. “I saw the team was very committed to the children, and they weren’t afraid of Dor’s behavior. It is very important to me as a parent that they don’t panic from my child and his behavior.”

There is still a lot of uncertainty about when they will be able to go back to their kibbutz, but for at least for now, there is comfort in knowing that Dor is in an educational framework which is providing him continuity, she said. 

“It gives me peace of mind that I know that at least on this front things are okay,” she said. 

The Shalva National Center in Jerusalem has also stepped up to provide frameworks for children with special needs whose families have been evacuated from their homes.  

In addition to welcoming to their campus the entire student body and staff of almost 100 people from a school for girls at risk from the southern community of Carmia which was destroyed in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, Shalva has also opened its doors to 80 children with special needs from families from the North and South evacuated to Jerusalem.  

“They have come from places of trauma and we are providing them with treatments and therapies, everything we could do to continue their school life, and try to prevent regression,” said Shalva CEO Yochanan Samuels.

Among the special therapies the children are receiving at Shalva are hydrotherapy treatments in a special therapeutic pool as well as treatments in their controlled multisensory environment Snoezelen room - from the Dutch verbs snuffelen (to seek and explore) and doezelen (to relax). It is used as a therapy for people with autism and other developmental disabilities, such as dementia or brain injury.

Another unplanned outcome of the meeting between the two groups—the girls at risk and the children with special needs both from Shalva’s own community and evacuees—is that the girls have started to reassess their own situation in relation to others, he said. Seeing that there are those in more difficult situations, the girls have begun to help out with the special needs children, he said. 

“They feel like they are contributing. That they are not just on the receiving end but that they can give as well,” he said. “Of course there are always challenges to overcome but we see the good and make this work.”

Shalva’s regular volunteers and National Service volunteers continue to pitch in, with funding for the extra programs coming in from donors, but right now Shalva is providing the services, and hoping to get more funding to pay the bills as they move along, he said. Recently the Ministry of Social Welfare has indicated that it would like to support their efforts, said Samuels.

Without a school framework, her 4-year-old son Itai who was diagnosed with autism a year ago, spends all his time in front of screens, said Inna Shibaeva, who just returned to Ashkelon after spending the past month with her family in Jerusalem.

With the continuation of his therapies at Shalva Itai began to talk in full sentences during their stay, she said.

“Now I see my life as “before Shalva” and “after Shalva,”” she said. “When we came to Jerusalem we were so scared and afraid. I hadn’t yet internalized that what happened on Oct. 7 could happen in Israel. Itai screamed and cried a lot and couldn’t sleep. Now he doesn’t scream at all. People received us at Shalva as if they knew us for 20 years. Itai regained his self-confidence and sense of security.”