Gaza’s children: what can the future possibly hold for them?
Tens of thousands of children have been wounded in Gaza, which now has the most child amputees per capita in the world. Even those evacuated for treatment face an impossible pathWhen I entered the home in north-east Philadelphia, Elias, a lively four-year-old boy, grabbed the pack of KitKats I had brought with me and began swinging it over his head. He whirled around in circles, hollering something unintelligible. In a familiar scene – I have small children of my own – his mother tried to impose order, but yielded to the greater force of a kid on sugar kept indoors by a cold snap.Elias, his five-year-old sister Taline and nine-year-old brother Khaled were in the US because Elias and Taline needed urgent medical care. They had sustained staggering injuries when Israel’s military shot a missile at the house they were taking refuge in. The explosion cleaved Elias’s right leg off below the knee. Taline’s injuries were also severe; she arrived in the US with external fixators – pins and steel in her legs – as she battled infection. A program organized and managed by Heal Palestine, a non-profit that helps evacuate wounded children from Gaza, arranged the children’s travel with their mother, Amna. Continue reading...
Tens of thousands of children have been wounded in Gaza, which now has the most child amputees per capita in the world. Even those evacuated for treatment face an impossible path
When I entered the home in north-east Philadelphia, Elias, a lively four-year-old boy, grabbed the pack of KitKats I had brought with me and began swinging it over his head. He whirled around in circles, hollering something unintelligible. In a familiar scene – I have small children of my own – his mother tried to impose order, but yielded to the greater force of a kid on sugar kept indoors by a cold snap.
Elias, his five-year-old sister Taline and nine-year-old brother Khaled were in the US because Elias and Taline needed urgent medical care. They had sustained staggering injuries when Israel’s military shot a missile at the house they were taking refuge in. The explosion cleaved Elias’s right leg off below the knee. Taline’s injuries were also severe; she arrived in the US with external fixators – pins and steel in her legs – as she battled infection. A program organized and managed by Heal Palestine, a non-profit that helps evacuate wounded children from Gaza, arranged the children’s travel with their mother, Amna. Continue reading...
