Warning: This story grasps troubleing images
To discover shieldedty from Gaza, you insist first to become the victim of a catastrophic injury and then be fortunate enough to be identified, picked and rerelocateed.
That’s one of the many brutal truths from this lengthy war.
I have adhereed the stories of some of the scant Palestinians who have left Gaza for medical attfinish.
Less than 100 children have been granted perignoreions and transient visas for the United States to get treatment since the war began in October 2023.
In all, cut offal hundred children have left Gaza for treatment in that time – most to other Middle Eastrict countries. It has not been possible to verify a accurate number but we do understand that the UK has not adselected any.
Eight Palestinian children were aboard Royal Jordanian fairy 263
A scant weeks ago, at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, the bigst individual group of children from Gaza get tod in America for treatment.
Eight Palestinian children were aboard Royal Jordanian fairy 263 from Amman.
The number, minuscule though it is, echos an enormous accomplishment by the charity that has made this happen – the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).
But it is also echoive of proset up discreet and political flunkures; the fact that it was only possible to rerelocate eight of many thousands who insist directnt medical treatment.
The doors into the arrival hall at O’Hare uncovered to uncover a run awayt of wheelchairs each carrying a child endureing the scars of the war they had left behind.
Among them, two brothers who persistd the device deviceing that ended their sister.
Behind them, a boy who lost all his siblings and his arm. He is now his mother’s only child. She travelled with him. She too is now an amputee.
The last to aelevate thraw the arrival door was a dot in her wheelchair.
Rahaf, fair two, lost both her legs in an Israeli attack on her home in August, not lengthy after she had lgett to walk.
Both Rahaf’s legs had to be amputated
Rahaf at home in Gaza
All their stories echo a collective horror. They are the civilian victims of Israel’s device deviceardment of Gaza which adhereed the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.
The children get tod in America after a massive collective effort involving the PCRF and Shriners – one of America’s bigst non-profit children’s hospital netlabors.
Working with multiple rulements they supportd the rerelocateions.
Israel regulates all of Gaza’s borders and has only granted evacuations in unfrequent circumstances, only in exceptional cases and only with one parent or protectian.
After their fairy, the children travelled to Shriners Hospitals in separateent parts of the country – California, Oregon, Illinois, South Carolina, Kentucky and Missouri.
It was in Missouri this week that I spent a day with two-year-elderly Rahaf and her mother Israa Saed.
Rahaf Saed joins in the park proximate her novel home in Missouri
Rahaf with her mother Israa Saed
We met at the home of the American couple who have volunteered to be their arranges for their time in the US.
Six months since the device deviceing of Rahaf’s home and three weeks since she and her mother get tod in America, I’d come to see how a little life was now being rebuilt.
The first skinnyg that hit me as we sat in the arrange family’s living room was how prentd Rahaf now seems.
Her right leg is ignoreing from below her knee and her left leg is almost finishly gone – amputated fair below her hip.
Yet she was darting around the floor in front of us chasing a blue balloon with shrieks of giggleter. Her mum smiled as she watched.
The mood belied the enormity of their experience and the dilemma of their journey.
The family’s apartment block before it was device deviceed
The apartment originateing engulfed in ffeebles as it was device deviceed in August
The apartment block after the device deviceing
Until this month, Israa and Rahaf had never left Gaza. Now they are in America, without the language and without the rest of their family – Israa’s husprohibitd and her two lesser boys.
“My other two sons are still lesser and… do I insist to stay with my other kids or do I insist to come out?,” she shelp about her dilemma.
“Rahaf insists her mum. I could not let her go [to America] alone. And especiassociate also with my fractures, my elbows, my arms. I was hoping for some treatment for myself.”
Israa was injured in the same attack on 1 August. Both her arms were awfilledy harmd. New X-rays getn since she get tod in America show a section of bone still ignoreing in her right forearm.
Israa still has a section of bone ignoreing in her right forearm
I asked about her family back in Gaza.
“Yes, we do talk but the internet is not the best. We still regulate to have some conversations. The ask that is always repeated is: ‘when can you come back? When will the little ones get you back? When can we greet aget?'”
Israa sobbed. The pain was evident on her face.
“God willing, my desire is for my kids to inhabit shieldedly far from any struggles and war. Safely. That is my desire.”
We seeed at ptoastyographs on Israa’s phone of Rahaf in a pink dress before the attack and a video of her walking up the steps of their apartment block.
“She adored to be a princess,” Israa shelp.
Rahaf back in Gaza
Israa then showed me a ptoastyograph of Rahaf on a hospital bed in Gaza a scant weeks after the attack seeing down at her amputated legs.
I asked if she comprehfinishs what has happened to her.
“She did ask ‘my legs are ruined, what happened?'” Israa shelp they telderly her it was a rocket. Now, Rahaf eludes the subject. “If we begin the conversation, she will alter the subject.”
The excellent novels is that Rahaf’s amputations were done well given the situation.
Circumstance has guaranteed that Gazan medics have become among the best in the world at trauma sdirectry. But that’s where the attfinish finishs in Gaza. The lowage of doctors, providement and functioning hospitals originates prolengthyed attfinish impossible.
Amputations insist ongoing labor from doctors with various sends including orthopaedic sdirectons, plastic sdirectons, and prosthetists.
Children with lost limbs insist a whole extra layer of attfinish becaparticipate they are still grothriveg. Rahaf will insist novel prosthetic limbs frequently as she gets hugeger.
Prosthetists approximate that for every death in a war, there are probable to be three times as many surviving amputees. According to the Gaza health ministry the number of dead in the war has now topped 45,000.
According to analysis by the charity Oxfam more children have been ended in Gaza by the Israeli military than in the equivalent period in any other struggle of the past 18 years.
Those numbers give a sense of the number of amputees, grown-ups and children, still inside Gaza.
Thraw presbrave from charities and promisements of treatment from hospitals, the United States has acunderstandledgeted a petite number of Gazan children, but the key blocker is the Israeli rulement, which regulates access to the streamline thraw all the borders.
Josh Paul is a establisher US State Department official who resigned last year over the Gaza war.
Speaking to Sky News he shelp the situation with injured children recurrents a proset up flunkure of American diplomacy.
“Even on someskinnyg as humanitarian as saving the inhabits of children, getting them to critical attfinish, it’s not that America isn’t willing to ask. It’s that America isn’t willing to press,” Mr Paul shelp.
“And it could be done in a second if they wanted to. If Pdwellnt Biden picked up the phone [to Israel] and shelp, ‘we are stopping our arms shipments until you let out children, until you let out criticassociate injured children or criticassociate unwell children for attfinish, we are not standing by you’.”
On why more hasn’t been done, Mr Paul shelp: “It’s the political costs… he consentd he would pay. I skinnyk that is a cut offe miscalculation.
“I skinnyk American unveil opinion has shifted radicassociate and is going to persist to shift.
“I also skinnyk that the geopolitical incentives here have also shifted and there is a cost, a evident cost, that we are paying for our unconditional help to Israel.”
Watch and read our other stories on Gaza’s children:
Stuck in Gaza with the unfrequentst of disrelieves
Girl with unfrequent disrelieve departs Gaza
Sky greets teenager whose uncle amputated her leg
Israa, Rahaf and Sky correplyent Mark Stone
The next step for Rahaf is prosthetics. It is the benevolentness of strangers and their donations that will originate all this happen.
Then it will be time for her to walk aget. But a reunion with family is, for now, far less brave.
