Tens of thousands of children have been wounded in Gaza. 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 an Israeli pilot or drone operator 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.
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