UK urged to admit 11 Gaza children hurt in the war for urgent treatment
Kareem saw the tanks and yelled. His mother and sister ran outside to find him, and then the tank fired.
The pain was so excruciating that Kareem begged the doctors to amputate his leg.
Because of the war, they had to do it without an anaesthetic. His screams were so loud that people on the floor above thought someone was giving birth.
“My husband, daughter, Kareem and I were all injured,” explains his mother.
Kareem has had infections in his bones and now weighs only 4st
Kareem’s doctor says he could die if he isn’t taken abroad for treatment
“My husband lost his eyesight and is currently awaiting treatment. His intestines are damaged. Kareem underwent surgery on the upper part of his body.
“The flesh around his leg is completely gone, leaving only the bone. Meanwhile, I have splinters in my eye.”
The 14-year-old boy, who was top of his class and dreamt of owning his own bike, now thinks he will never ride one again.
Kareem is suffering massive weight loss and is now only 26kg (4st 1lb), unable to move far and has had infections in his bones.
“Kareem reached a state of despair; he lacked the energy to engage in conversation,” says his mother.
“Every time I tried to talk to him, he would lash out at me. When the crossings closed, his dreams were shattered.
“Even the faint glimmer of hope we had was gone. We were left with nothing.”
Kareem’s mother says he reached a ‘state of despair’ after his awful injuries
“His condition is deteriorating every day,” says his doctor, Saeed.
“He is at risk of losing his life due to the scarcity of medical supplies and the many difficulties we face as a medical team in this department.
“We cannot adequately treat these cases here. This patient needs to be transferred out of Gaza.”
Kareem is being treated in hospitals suffering a chronic shortages of medical supplies
Two British charities, Project Pure Hope and Save A Child, have written to the UK foreign and home secretaries asking them to give approval for Kareem and 10 other children to travel to the UK for specialist treatment.
The charities have experience taking other children for care outside Gaza.
“If they are able to enter the United Kingdom for a finite period in order to receive the treatments needed, it is our assessment that their prospects of surviving in the first instance, and securing a good quality of life, will be materially enhanced,” the letter says.
Money for their travel and medical costs has already been raised.
Their stay in Britain would only be temporary, for the course of their treatment – it just needs the British government to sign it off, but they have not done so.
Other European countries, including France, Italy and Switzerland, have accepted children from Gaza for medical care.
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“We are assured that, once again, the UK has the expertise and centres to effectively treat and manage these children’s injuries, and that these are not available immediately in the local region,” continues the letter to Lord Cameron and James Cleverly.
‘She wakes up screaming’
Two-year-old Zeina is also on the evacuation list. She was injured in a fire after an airstrike on the camp she was living in.
More than a fifth of her small body is covered in second and third-degree burns.
Her thighs, the palms of her hands, her chest, back, neck, face and forehead are all burnt.
“One day, at approximately 2.30pm I went to get bread,” says her father Noor.
“When I came back, my wife was wailing and screaming that Zeina was injured. I asked her what happened, and she told me that there was a strike on the refugee camp while she was cooking, and Zeina started running around and fell into the fire.”
Zeina’s had 16 operations in just two months, on average one every three or four days. It’s amazing she survived.
These children are not just suffering physical pain, they are experiencing deep trauma too. There is no escape for them.
“Her pain keeps getting worse, and sometimes she wakes up screaming at night,” Noor says.
Zeina’s father says she is traumatised and her pain is getting worse
“Whenever she sees someone in a medical uniform, she panics and starts screaming. She is always afraid, and sometimes she can’t control her urine.
“This wasn’t a problem before her injury; it only started after the surgeries.
“It has gotten so bad that she sometimes wets herself out of fear,” says her father. “She only feels safe with her mother and me; it is as though she is dealing with trauma now.”
The hospitals, so damaged by the fighting, cannot give the children the treatment they need. Asleep or awake, they are haunted by the pain of their injuries and sounds of war.
They have a small chance of recovery: Britain. If only they could go there.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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