Gaza Children in urgent need not allowed overseas for medical care

It was the morning of 8 June when Ahmed Damoo got the call that his home, a small concrete building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, had been hit by an IDF rocket. When he returned to what was left of his house, he learned that his family had been buried beneath the rubble.

- Thaslima Begum

One by one, his neighbours had dragged the bodies from the debris. Damoo's in-laws and his children Hala, 13, and Mohannad, 10, who had been playing in the living room when they were killed. His wife, Areej, and toddler, Tala, sustained serious injuries but were still alive.

His last child, 12-year-old Mazyouna, could not be located. When Damoo eventually found her, he almost passed out. "Her face was ripped off and her jaw was literally hanging," he recalled. "My beautiful little girl was completely unrecognisable."

At al-Aqsa hospital, doctors used what little resources they had to stitch Mazyouna's face back together and hold the remaining structure in place. Mohammed Tahir, a British doctor volunteering in Gaza, saw her during his ward rounds. "It was one of the most shocking cases I've seen," he said. "Half of her cheek was missing and her bones were exposed. The doctors tried their best but the extensive reconstructive work she requires cannot be provided here."

Since June, the family and FAJR Scientific, a US non-profit organisation providing free medical care to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, have tried to evacuate Mazyouna to the US, where they have surgeons waiting to treat her.

Five times their requests have been denied without explanation by the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat).