Eyad al-Sarraj
إياد السراج
Psychiatrist and founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme
Gaza's first practising psychiatrist, who built mental health care under occupation into a form of human rights work.
Eyad al-Sarraj was born in Beersheba in 1944; his family fled to Gaza in 1948, and he lived there for most of his life. He studied medicine in Alexandria and psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, then returned to Gaza, where he directed the mental health services and became the Strip’s first practising psychiatrist. In 1990 he founded the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, which treats children, women, and victims of torture and political violence.
For al-Sarraj, mental health and human rights were inseparable: trauma, he argued, could not be treated while the conditions producing it continued. He documented the psychological toll of occupation and torture, testified before international bodies, and received several human rights awards. Though imprisoned more than once for his criticism — of both Israeli practices and Palestinian Authority abuses — he remained committed to nonviolence and to dialogue with Israeli peace activists. He died of leukemia in December 2013.
Selected contributions
- Founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (1990)
- Director of Mental Health Services, Gaza (1981–1988)
- Testimony on Gaza to the UN Fact Finding Mission (2009)
Sources
Further reading
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Connected in the archive
22 connected records22 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
born in — 1 record
- Bir al-Sabaبئر السبع
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: birthplace: "Beersheba, Palestine" → Bir al-Saba (Naqab (Negev))
names this person — 1 record
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Gaza Community Mental Health Programme — the Palestinian clinical record
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Its own account of itself is plain: "GCMHP was established in 1990 by the renowned Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights defender, Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, as an independent, non-governmental, and non-profit Palestinian organization."
on a related subject — 20 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- 'You Feel Like You Are Subhuman': Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "human rights".
- Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "human rights".
- Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "human rights".
- Al-Haq — Defending Human Rights in Palestine
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "human rights".
- Amnesty International — Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "human rights".
- Defense for Children International — Palestine (DCIP)
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "human rights".
- and 14 more
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- Chicago
“Eyad al-Sarraj.” Figures, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/figures/eyad-al-sarraj.- MLA
“Eyad al-Sarraj.” Figures, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/figures/eyad-al-sarraj. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-eyad-al-sarraj, title = {Eyad al-Sarraj}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/figures/eyad-al-sarraj}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }