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We talk about the great faith and resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of the greatest of calamities. What we don’t talk about is shock and trauma.

What to the outside observer may seem like unwavering taqwa may to those afflicted by unmatched upheaval be a numb shell shock. In the language of our society, sudden post-traumatic stress disorder.

While opponents gloss over the immense trauma that the past month has inflicted on a nation, so too do their supporters romanticise the response of the innocents caught up in this military mayhem. The people so crushed are turned into super-humans of colossal faith.

But how do we know? For who is there to witness the aftermath of each missile strike? Put yourself in their shoes. What would your reaction be to being forcibly displaced from your property, then seeing the home you built and loved pulverised to dust?

What would be your reaction to the death of a child or parent, let alone your entire family? Recall your reaction the day your own house was burgled, your possessions turned over by an intruder. Remember your reaction when your beloved grandmother passed away. Were you not numb too?

This is a people already traumatised for generations, and now for generations more to come. How will such souls heal? Look in on yourself. How are you faring with your own childhood traumas, seemingly so insignificant in comparison to all that has stricken these people?

Is the world capable of granting these people space to heal? Are they not deserving of peace, freedom and understanding? Will there be talking therapies to council them? Play therapy for the little ones? Any early intervention services to tackle psychosis and recurring nightmares?

I don’t know if religious zealots are well equipped to support the men, women and children reeling from these traumas. Do they even see the people of the land as the likes of you and I? Do they truly recognise their humanity, or have they been turned into more-than-men, somehow possessing of the qualities of angels?

Who invented this notion that these people are not allowed to make hijra, even though that was the practice of the best of us? Who decided to make these people model believers who must remain in harm’s way, in defence of ideas promulgated thousands of miles away? Is that what you want for yourself, or your children?

That is now a land wrought with a trauma that may never heal. The people there deserve our kind compassion, founded on an understanding of the human psyche. They don’t need ideologues turning them into great saints and sages. Look at yourself, and you may then see them.