How the lives of the few child amputees allowed to leave Gaza are being rebuilt elsewhere
Warning: This story contains distressing images
To find safety from Gaza, you need first to become the victim of a catastrophic injury and then be lucky enough to be identified, selected and extracted.
That’s one of the many brutal truths from this long war.
I have followed the stories of some of the few Palestinians who have left Gaza for medical care.
Less than 100 children have been granted permissions and temporary visas for the United States to receive treatment since the war began in October 2023.
In all, several hundred children have left Gaza for treatment in that time – most to other Middle Eastern countries. It has not been possible to confirm a precise number but we do know that the UK has not accepted any.
Eight Palestinian children were aboard Royal Jordanian flight 263
A few weeks ago, at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, the largest single group of children from Gaza arrived in America for treatment.
Eight Palestinian children were aboard Royal Jordanian flight 263 from Amman.
The number, tiny though it is, reflects an enormous achievement by the charity that has made this happen – the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).
But it is also reflective of deep diplomatic and political failures; the fact that it was only possible to extract eight of many thousands who need urgent medical treatment.
The doors into the arrival hall at O’Hare opened to reveal a fleet of wheelchairs each carrying a child bearing the scars of the war they had left behind.
Among them, two brothers who survived the bombing that killed their sister.
Behind them, a boy who lost all his siblings and his arm. He is now his mother’s only child. She travelled with him. She too is now an amputee.
The last to emerge through the arrival door was a dot in her wheelchair.
Rahaf, just two, lost both her legs in an Israeli attack on her home in August, not long after she had learnt to walk.
Both Rahaf’s legs had to be amputated
Rahaf at home in Gaza
All their stories reflect a collective horror. They are the civilian victims of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza which followed the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.
The children arrived in America after a massive collective effort involving the PCRF and Shriners – one of America’s largest non-profit children’s hospital networks.
Working with multiple governments they facilitated the extractions.
Israel controls all of Gaza’s borders and has only granted evacuations in rare circumstances, only in exceptional cases and only with one parent or guardian.
After their flight, the children travelled to Shriners Hospitals in different parts of the country – California, Oregon, Illinois, South Carolina, Kentucky and Missouri.
It was in Missouri this week that I spent a day with two-year-old Rahaf and her mother Israa Saed.
Rahaf Saed plays in the park near her new home in Missouri
Rahaf with her mother Israa Saed
We met at the home of the American couple who have volunteered to be their hosts for their time in the US.
Six months since the bombing of Rahaf’s home and three weeks since she and her mother arrived in America, I’d come to see how a little life was now being rebuilt.
The first thing that hit me as we sat in the host family’s living room was how happy Rahaf now seems.
Her right leg is missing from below her knee and her left leg is almost completely gone – amputated just below her hip.
Yet she was darting around the floor in front of us chasing a blue balloon with shrieks of laughter. Her mum smiled as she watched.
The mood belied the enormity of their experience and the dilemma of their journey.
The family’s apartment block before it was bombed
The apartment building engulfed in flames as it was bombed in August
The apartment block after the bombing
Until this month, Israa and Rahaf had never left Gaza. Now they are in America, without the language and without the rest of their family – Israa’s husband and her two young boys.
“My other two sons are still young and… do I need to stay with my other kids or do I need to come out?,” she said about her dilemma.
“Rahaf needs her mum. I could not let her go [to America] alone. And especially also with my fractures, my elbows, my arms. I was hoping for some treatment for myself.”
Israa was injured in the same attack on 1 August. Both her arms were badly damaged. New X-rays taken since she arrived in America show a section of bone still missing in her right forearm.
Israa still has a section of bone missing in her right forearm
I asked about her family back in Gaza.
“Yes, we do talk but the internet is not the best. We still manage to have some conversations. The question that is always repeated is: ‘when can you come back? When will the little ones get you back? When can we meet again?'”
Israa sobbed. The pain was clear on her face.
“God willing, my wish is for my kids to live safely far from any conflicts and war. Safely. That is my wish.”
We looked at photographs on Israa’s phone of Rahaf in a pink dress before the attack and a video of her walking up the steps of their apartment block.
“She loved to be a princess,” Israa said.
Rahaf back in Gaza
Israa then showed me a photograph of Rahaf on a hospital bed in Gaza a few weeks after the attack looking down at her amputated legs.
I asked if she understands what has happened to her.
“She did ask ‘my legs are destroyed, what happened?'” Israa said they told her it was a rocket. Now, Rahaf avoids the subject. “If we start the conversation, she will change the subject.”
The good news is that Rahaf’s amputations were done well given the situation.
Circumstance has ensured that Gazan medics have become among the best in the world at trauma surgery. But that’s where the care ends in Gaza. The shortage of doctors, equipment and functioning hospitals makes prolonged care impossible.
Amputations require ongoing work from doctors with various skills including orthopaedic surgeons, plastic surgeons, and prosthetists.
Children with lost limbs demand a whole extra layer of care because they are still growing. Rahaf will need new prosthetic limbs frequently as she gets bigger.
Prosthetists estimate that for every death in a war, there are likely to be three times as many surviving amputees. According to the Gaza health ministry the number of dead in the war has now topped 45,000.
According to analysis by the charity Oxfam more children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than in the equivalent period in any other conflict of the past 18 years.
Those numbers give a sense of the number of amputees, adults and children, still inside Gaza.
Through pressure from charities and commitments of treatment from hospitals, the United States has admitted a small number of Gazan children, but the key blocker is the Israeli government, which controls access to the strip through all the borders.
Josh Paul is a former US State Department official who resigned last year over the Gaza war.
Speaking to Sky News he said the situation with injured children represents a deep failure of American diplomacy.
“Even on something as humanitarian as saving the lives of children, getting them to critical care, it’s not that America isn’t willing to ask. It’s that America isn’t willing to press,” Mr Paul said.
“And it could be done in a second if they wanted to. If President Biden picked up the phone [to Israel] and said, ‘we are stopping our arms shipments until you let out children, until you let out critically injured children or critically sick children for care, we are not standing by you’.”
On why more hasn’t been done, Mr Paul said: “It’s the political costs… he believed he would pay. I think that is a severe miscalculation.
“I think American public opinion has shifted radically and is going to continue to shift.
“I also think that the geopolitical incentives here have also shifted and there is a cost, a clear cost, that we are paying for our unconditional support to Israel.”
Watch and read our other stories on Gaza’s children:
Stuck in Gaza with the rarest of diseases
Girl with rare disease leaves Gaza
Sky meets teenager whose uncle amputated her leg
Israa, Rahaf and Sky correspondent Mark Stone
The next step for Rahaf is prosthetics. It is the kindness of strangers and their donations that will make all this happen.
Then it will be time for her to walk again. But a reunion with family is, for now, far less certain.
US
US defence secretary signals dramatic shift in American military policy away from Europe, warning allies about ‘stark strategic realities’
US troops will not be used to secure the peace in Ukraine following any ceasefire deal with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump’s new defence secretary has declared, as he signalled a dramatic shift in American foreign and defence policy away from Europe.
Pete Hegseth also said it is “unrealistic” to think Ukraine can return to its pre-2014 borders and he ruled out NATO membership as way to guarantee Kyiv’s security.
This will be a huge blow for Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The interventions came at the opening of a meeting of allies in Brussels on Wednesday.
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Defence secretaries Pete Hegseth and John Healey meeting in Brussels.
Pic: Reuters/Johanna Geron/Pool
Mr Hegseth said Washington must focus on the threat posed by China and securing its own borders.
He added: “Stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.
“As the United States shifts its attention to these threats, European allies must lead from the front,” Mr Hegseth said in opening remarks at the gathering of NATO and non-NATO countries that are providing military support to Ukraine.
NATO spending
Mr Trump – a long-time critic of the alliance, which he sees as containing freeloaders that benefit from American military strength without investing in their own security – has said all NATO allies should increase defence spending to 5% of GDP.
This is more than double the current target. The UK is only spending 2.3%.
While still supportive of NATO, Mr Hegseth warned that America’s patience was limited.
“Our transatlantic alliance has endured for decades. And we fully expect it will sustained for generations more. But this won’t just happen,” he said.
He continued: “It will require our European allies to step into the arena and take ownership of conventional security on this continent.
“The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defence partnership with Europe.
“Our relationship will prioritise empowering Europe to own responsibility for its security.”
Ukraine-Russia war
Mr Hegseth also had strong words about Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he said “must end”.
Speaking frankly, he dismissed a fundamental Ukrainian goal to recapture all its territory – including Crimea and swathes of the Donbas that were seized by Russia in 2014 when Mr Putin first invaded his neighbour. This aim had previously been backed by the UK and other allies.
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“We want… a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” he said.
“Chasing this illusory goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”
The US defence secretary said that a durable peace must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war won’t begin again – but he made clear that the US would not be part of that effort on the ground and it could not be a NATO operation.
It was not immediately clear, however, whether the US military may help to provide protection from a distance.
“These security guarantees should not be provided through NATO membership, but must instead be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” the US defence secretary said.
“If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission and not covered under Article 5. There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact.”
Pete Hegseth stands with German defence minister Boris Pistorius.
Pic: Reuters/Johanna Geron/Pool
Article 5 of NATO says an armed attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
Read more: What is Article 5?
Mr Hegseth continued: “To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine.”
His words will be a significant setback for Kyiv.
President Zelenskyy told Sky News last week that any peacekeeping force that did not include a US element would be a “major mistake”, signalling that he did not believe European militaries alone could deter Moscow.
The retreat of the US from its leadership role in Ukraine was clear in the choreography of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting – an alignment of allies gathered together by Washington under Joe Biden and his defence secretary Loyd Austin after Russia launched its full-scale invasion almost exactly three years ago.
Future of European security
The regular meetings have until now always been chaired by the US.
Wednesday’s meeting, however, was led by John Healey, the UK defence secretary.
Mr Hegseth made clear that European allies would need to step up and take on much more of the effort to provide Ukraine with weapons and non-military support.
“Safeguarding European security is an imperative for European members of NATO. As part of this, Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine,” he said.
This means donating more ammunition, expanding Europe’s defence industrial base and rallying the public to be willing to respond to the threat the continent faces.
“Part of this is speaking frankly with your people about how this threat can only be met by spending more on defence and investing strategically,” Mr Hegseth said.
“Increasing your commitment to your own security is a down payment for the future.”
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said he agreed with US president Donald Trump on the need for Washington and European allies to share the burden of military aid for Ukraine more equally.
US
Elon Musk denies ‘hostile takeover’ of US government – as son sits on his shoulders in Oval Office
Elon Musk joined Donald Trump in the Oval Office as the US president signed an executive order allowing the tech billionaire to make large-scale reductions in the federal workforce.
As head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory group, Mr Musk says he wants to add “common sense controls” to government and ensure taxpayer money is spent wisely.
The executive order requires government agencies to work with DOGE, in some cases so they can be “eliminated or combined because their functions aren’t required by law”.
In addition, the agencies have been told to “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service”, with exceptions for immigration, law enforcement and public safety.
Answering reporters’ questions in the Oval Office, Mr Musk was asked to respond to accusations he is orchestrating a “hostile takeover” of government in a non-transparent way.
Elon Musk told reporters in the Oval Office that ‘the public voted for major government reform’. Pic: AP
The Tesla CEO and owner of X said “the public voted for major government reform… and they’re going to get what they voted for. And that’s what democracy is all about”.
“We have this unelected, fourth unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy, which has in a lot of ways, currently more power than any elected representative,” he added, while stood alongside his son X Æ A-12.
Mr Musk also spoke about what he described as a lack of Treasury controls. “Your tax dollars need to be spent wisely on things that matter to the people… it’s just common sense. It’s not draconian or radical”.
Elon Musk brought his son to the White House for Oval Office news briefing. Pic: Reuters
When challenged about what checks and balances are in place to ensure accountability for Mr Musk, who is unelected, he replied: “We are trying to be as transparent as possible… I don’t know of a case where an organisation has been more transparent”.
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Another reporter raised the possibility of conflicts of interest, pointing out Mr Musk has received billions of dollars in federal contracts.
“All of our actions are fully public,” he says, adding that he fully expects to be “scrutinised nonstop” – comparing it to “a daily proctologist exam” – but also admitting “we will make mistakes, but we’ll also fix the mistakes very quickly”.
“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” he said. “So nobody can bat 1,000.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Musk posted an attack aimed at judges who have issued rulings that paused Mr Trump’s executive actions.
“Democracy in America is being destroyed by judicial coup,” Mr Musk wrote on X.
The president voiced a similar complaint in the Oval Office alongside Mr Musk.
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“We want to weed out the corruption. And it seems hard to believe that a judge could say, we don’t want you to do that,” he said.
“So maybe we have to look at the judges, because that’s very serious. I think it’s a very serious violation.”
Mr Trump also held discussions with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House.
The president repeated his pledge to “take Gaza” and move its residents to Jordan and Egypt, something the king has rejected.
Donald Trump has doubled down on US plans to take over Gaza in a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House.
The meeting came the day after the president said he would withhold aid to Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries if they refused to take in people forcibly displaced from Gaza.
King Abdullah’s “steadfast position” – as he laid out on X after the news conference – was “against the displacement of Palestinians.”
He said Jordan, which is already home to millions of Palestinians, will take in 2,000 children who have cancer or are otherwise unwell.
But on taking in more Gazans, he stressed a solution that was “good for everybody” – including Americans, the “people in the region” and Jordanians – was his priority.
However, the King sat quietly as Mr Trump reiterated his plans to displace two million Palestinians, which he said was a “very small number of people”.
Mr Trump also said he believes there will be “parcels of land” in Jordan, Egypt and “someplace else” where Palestinians will live “happily and very safely”.
Pic: Reuters
“They only want to be in the Gaza Strip because they don’t know anything else, they’ve never had an alternative,” Mr Trump said.
“They are being killed there at levels that nobody has ever seen – no place in the world is as dangerous as the Gaza Strip.”
He claims – contrary to what Gazans have said – that “not one person” wants to stay in Gaza.
Asked to respond to the widespread view among experts in international law that his plan amounts to ethnic cleansing, Mr Trump said: “We are moving them to a beautiful location.”
Pic: Reuters
However, Trump appeared to ease off his previous threat to withdraw aid to countries that refused to take in people from Gaza.
“Well, I don’t want to say that… we don’t have to threaten that, I do believe we’re above that,” he said.
In the same news conference, Mr Trump said the US won’t buy Gaza, it will simply “have it”.
“We don’t have to buy, there’s nothing to buy,” he said.
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‘Palestinians don’t want to be on Gaza Strip’
“It’s a war-torn area, we’re going to hold it, we’re going to take it… Gaza the way it is, civilisation has been wiped out in Gaza. It’s going to be a great economic development.”
He declined to answer how that would work – and how he can avoid spending US taxes running it.
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“We’re going to run it very properly and eventually we’ll have economic development at a very large scale”, he said, promising “peace in the Middle East”.
“With the United States in control of that piece of land… you’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time.
“The Palestinians, the people who live now in Gaza, will be living beautifully in another location.
“They are going to be living safely – they’re not going to be killed, murdered and having to leave every 10 years.”
Trump added that he is 99% sure he will work out a deal with Egypt.
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