My cousin Ahmad was 9 years old when he suffered severe head injuries in Gaza. A year ago, a missile hit the house next to ours in Nuseyrat. The explosion was so violent that Ahmad was thrown down the third-floor stairs of the building. He fell hard, shattering his skull.
We took him to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where doctors fought for his life. There were moments when the heart monitor barely registered a heartbeat. We all thought we had lost him forever, but Ahmad was known for his stubbornness and defied death itself.
he survived. Two days later, he was taken to European Hospital, where doctors performed surgery to stop bleeding in his brain and removed about a third of his skull to relieve pressure. He spent two weeks in intensive care receiving oxygen and a ventilator. He lost the ability to speak and was left paralyzed on the left side of his body. The head injury has also damaged the nerves in his eyes, putting him at risk for blindness.
After regaining consciousness, he remained in the hospital for several more weeks before being transferred to a hospital run by the Red Crescent Society, where he underwent physical therapy for a month and a half. The plan was to stabilize his condition for several more months before undergoing surgery to insert an artificial bone to cover his brain.
But on one of Ahmad’s last days in the hospital, the Israeli military bombed the compound, sending debris and debris crashing into the building. In the room Ahmad was in, a large piece of debris fell just centimeters from his head. It frightened his family and doctors. They decided it was too dangerous to leave him without his skull in these conditions and he was sent back to European Hospital for surgery.
Artificial bone was implanted to reconstruct the missing part of Ahmad’s skull. After the surgery, he was hospitalized for two weeks before being discharged. They were supposed to eat nutritious meals to help them recover, but starvation soon hit Gaza.
His family was unable to buy milk, eggs and other nutritious foods to help Ahmad heal. Some days, Ahmad’s mother, his aunt Iman, could not find even a kilogram of flour. Malnutrition undermined his recovery. The artificial bones in his skull began to disintegrate. Press gently on the soft part of the head until your finger sinks about 2 cm (3/4 inch).
Now, Ahmad is living in a nightmare. Severe head injury, brain hemorrhage, damage to one eye and half of his body paralyzed. He urgently requires skull reconstruction surgery, eye surgery, and ongoing intensive physical therapy.
Despite everything, his mother has been trying to integrate him so that he does not fall into despair. A few weeks ago, she enrolled him in a tent school so he could keep up with his peers. She took him there every day with a notebook and pen. But when I returned to the tent and took out my notebook, the pages were always blank.
Eventually, my aunt went to talk to the teacher about this. They told her she couldn’t write for more than two minutes until the pain in her head became unbearable. He cried, threw down his pen, and laid his head on the table.
His mother has tried to teach him at home, but he has to sleep for an hour before studying and 30 minutes after, and still struggles to absorb information.
Ahmad is one of 15,600 sick or injured Palestinians on the outskirts of Gaza who require emergency treatment. Since October 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) has evacuated more than 7,600 patients from the Gaza Strip, two-thirds of whom were children. But in recent months, these evacuations have slowed little by little.
After the latest ceasefire began on October 10, the first medical evacuation took place two weeks later, with only 41 patients and 145 companions taking part.
The Rafah border with Egypt remains closed. Israel currently allows medical evacuations via the Karem Abu Salem crossing only in small and unpredictable cases. Israel controls who is placed on evacuation lists and who receives approval to leave. This process is very slow. At the current pace, it will take years to evacuate everyone. Many people will not be able to achieve that.
But Israel is not the only barrier. Even if a patient receives approval, it does not mean they will leave. They still need money to pay hospital bills and foreign governments to issue them visas.
Medical evacuations are recommended by local hospitals, but the process itself is managed by the World Health Organization, which is trying to get foreign governments to pay for evacuations, but the list is too long and few countries are willing to accept patients from Gaza. In many emergency cases, families cannot wait and try to secure funds or contact foreign hospitals themselves.
people are waiting. Days and months pass. The patient’s condition worsens. Some people die while waiting.
Because it was Ahmad’s first surgery, it was initially classified as “not a priority.” But starvation worsened his condition. After repeated attempts by local doctors to prove that Ahmad was worthy of evacuation, permission was finally granted. His family felt a joy they hadn’t felt in months.
But then came the shock.
They were told they were responsible for securing treatment, and the funds needed for Ahmad’s treatment in a hospital overseas were unaffordable for the displaced family living in tents. His parents, teachers and professors, work but do not receive regular salaries. They still pay monthly mortgage installments to the bank for their bombed-out, abandoned home. Their meager income barely allows them to live in tents.
But they haven’t given up. Ahmad’s younger brother, Youssef, regularly contacts hospitals overseas to find one that will treat him. Her father, Hassan, has written to his contacts overseas, hoping to find someone who can help.
They continue to fight, but Ahmad’s condition worsens. He is now starting to forget his family’s names.
Too many children like Ahmad are languishing in Gaza, waiting to be evacuated. Israel bears the primary responsibility as the occupier. But what is the world doing to save these children?
The wealthy governments that financed and supported the genocide have turned a blind eye. Either accept some cases or none at all. Their refusal to act, acknowledge the suffering of Palestinian children and accept their humanity is a further sign of their moral bankruptcy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
