‘The doctor told me count to three – and he cut my leg’: The generation of Palestinian children with devastating amputations after a year of war
A generation of children and young adults in Gaza are coping with devastating amputations after a year of brutal war.
It’s left a terrible legacy, with thousands – many of them babies – coping with missing limbs.
Warning: This story contains images and descriptions readers may find distressing
Those in Gaza like Jihad have absolutely heart-breaking war wounds. The three-year-old’s left leg has been amputated right up to the hip, his right leg cut below the knee. The doctors couldn’t save three of the fingers on his left hand.
Jihad, who lost both his legs and three fingers
He cries constantly and he’s writhing around in pain when Sky’s Gaza crew sees him. His mother Mai tells our team that he’s completely changed since the bombing – going from an active, talkative toddler to a depressed little boy who can’t accept his crushing lack of mobility.
“He keeps asking me for slippers and he has no feet,” she says despairingly.
The whole family was injured when a bomb landed near their tent in Khan Younis where they’d fled to. But Jihad was by far the worst affected.
She’s desperate to get him the help he so urgently needs but there’s very little aid getting into Gaza, and there has been no evacuations from the war zone, even for the very sick or wounded, for weeks now.
We were given rare access on board a planeload of aid and personnel being flown into the area. But this aid was not going into Gaza. It was instead going to a floating hospital run by the United Arab Emirates and anchored off the coast of Egypt – the nearest secure position it has permission for near Gaza.
The entrance to the floating hospital
The hospital’s patients are all wounded or ill from Gaza. They include children – some who arrived like ten-year-old Yazan, alone without even a guardian, his left leg already cut below the knee. He’s already spent several weeks on board the floating hospital. The doctors and nurses all know him.
Yazan, 10, who arrived at the hospital without a guardian
The hospital’s director, Dr Ahmed Mubarak tells us: “We are his family right now and we try to give him all the support he needs.”
Dr Ahmed Mubarak, director of the floating hospital
Yazan tells the director he’s “good” and that he plays football and games like the other children on board – but his eyes are sunken and he has dark shadows around them. He’s just a little boy, all alone, thrown into and devastated by this man’s war which has changed his life forever.
The ship has been converted into a state-of-the-art medical facility with five decks of equipment including an emergency room, operating theatre and ICU.
Here, the rescued patients are given access to specialist surgeons, medics, nursing staff and equipment and medicines beyond the wildest dreams of those trapped in the Gaza war zone. And most of all, those here are given sanctuary from the bombing, mayhem, blood and chaos of the war a short distance away.
Read more:
How life changed in a year for a group of Gaza civilians
Israel-Hamas war: Timeline of events since 7 October
The UN has estimated about one thousand children like Yazan had amputations in just one month of the war last November. It’s a shuddering thought wondering how many more there must be now.
Children playing at the humanitarian centre
‘I just want to walk properly again’
At the Humanitarian City in Abu Dhabi – as it’s named by the Emiratis who set it up – we see a horrifying number of them. Amidst the children playing on the swings, or boys having a go at the arcade machines provided or those making their way along the corridors, you’ll catch glimpses of them.
There’s a young girl doing her best to get momentum on the swings with only one arm. At the arcade, there are boys in wheelchairs with legs missing or riding the arcade motorbike with only one leg.
In the physio room, a 13-year-old girl called Tuqa is being persuaded to try to walk on her artificial limbs. She has not one but two prosthesis to try to balance on and get the measure of. The double-amputee is struggling.
Tuqa and her prosthetic legs
“I’m scared,” she tells the physio who is trying to coax her into letting go of him. “Try, try, come on, let’s go,” he says.
Tuqa in Gaza
I ask her what her ambition is and she says with heart-rending simplicity: “I just want to walk properly again.” Then she adds: “And go back home.”
A childhood of surgeries
Rakan is one little baby who has made it out. He has his right leg missing but he’s too young to know that he’s seen as one of the “lucky” ones.
Baby Rakan’s parents were denied permission to leave Gaza
He’s not too young to be wary of the doctors who are measuring him up for his new prosthesis though. He’s learned this process can sometimes hurt.
He has a lot more pain to come. His childhood is going to be consumed with multiple surgeries as he’s fitted and re-fitted with artificial limbs as he grows.
Rakan’s grandmother is his guardian on the floating hospital
Rakan too came out of Gaza without his parents who were refused permission to leave. His guardian now is his grandmother. She tells us she doesn’t support Hamas. We’re not naming her for the safety of the family still in Gaza.
“Me, my family, all of us, don’t like Hamas,” she tells us. “If I have a neighbour who says they are [Hamas], I’ll distance myself from them.”
She adds: “I don’t like them and I won’t live in the same area but it’s impossible to know who’s who.”
‘The doctor told me to count to three’
When we hear Fuad’s tale of survival, I begin to think the loss of one of his legs might be the least of his wounds. He tells of a bomb hitting his parents’ bedroom in Gaza, killing them instantly as well as three siblings.
Fuad testing out his prosthetic leg
The sixteen-year-old was showered in rubble and pulled out by his cousin who took him to Al Shifa hospital which was already crowded. “I was laying in the hallway of the hospital,” he tells us, “I could see my leg was half gone.”
The doctor told him he was going to have to amputate it and he had no anaesthetic.
“I told him, wait for my father,” he said. “I didn’t know my father was killed then… and he told me: count to three – and he cut it. He put my leg in a bag next to me.”
Fuad in hospital in Gaza
He shows us pictures of himself in the crowded hospital, sometimes with dressings on his amputated leg, sometimes not. He spent 20 days there until the hospital was stormed for the first time by Israeli troops.
“We had no water, food or electricity,” he says. “And me and the guy next to me had a spoonful of food a day.”
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I ask him if he saw any armed men or Hamas in the hospital as the Israelis designated Al Shifa a command and control centre for the militant group. “The only armed men I saw were Israeli soldiers,” he said angrily. “And if you’re asking me if we were Hamas. We are not. My father was a doctor. We had nothing to do with Hamas.”
Everywhere we look there are tales of survival and horrifying death-defying battles. A year on, the trauma and war is still waging.
:: Alex Crawford reports with camera operator Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and our Sky News teams inside the Gaza Strip
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
World
IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike
The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.
Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.
The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.
A wounded child is treated after the strike on the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.
Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.
When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.
Blood stains are seen on containers at the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.
Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.
Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.
The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.
The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.
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Palestinians shot while seeking aid, says paramedic
The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.
More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Read more:
Palestinians shot while seeking aid, says paramedic
Dozens of MPs call for UK to recognise Palestine as state
US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.
But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.
Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
World
‘At least 59 killed’ in Gaza after Israeli military opens fire near aid centre and carries out strikes
At least 59 Palestinians have reportedly been killed after the Israeli military opened fire near an aid centre in Gaza and carried out strikes across the territory.
The Red Cross, which operates a field hospital in Rafah, said 25 people were “declared dead upon arrival” and “six more died after admittance” following gunfire near an aid distribution centre in the southern Gazan city.
The humanitarian organisation added that it also received 132 patients “suffering from weapon-related injuries” after the incident.
The Red Cross said: “The overwhelming majority of these patients sustained gunshot wounds, and all responsive individuals reported they were attempting to access food distribution sites.”
The organisation said the number of deaths marks the hospital’s “largest influx of fatalities” since it began operations in May last year.
The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.
It said in a statement: “Earlier today, several suspects were identified approaching IDF troops operating in the Rafah area, posing a threat to the troops, hundreds of metres from the aid distribution site.
“IDF troops operated in order to prevent the suspects from approaching them and fired warning shots.”
Palestinians mourn a loved one following the incident near the aid centre. Pic: Reuters
Mother’s despair over shooting
Somia Alshaar told Sky News her 17-year-old son Nasir was shot dead while visiting the aid centre after she told him not to go.
She said: “He went to get us tahini so we could eat.
“He went to get flour. He told me ‘mama, we don’t have tahini. Today I’ll bring you flour. Even if it kills me, I will get you flour’.
“He left the house and didn’t return. They told me at the hospital: your son…’Oh God, oh Lord’.”
Asked where her son was shot, she replied: “In the chest. Yes, in the chest.”
Somia Alshaar, pictured with her daughter, says her son was shot dead. Pic: Reuters
‘A policy of mass murder’
Hassan Omran, a paramedic with Gaza’s ministry of health, told Sky News after the incident that humanitarian aid centres in Gaza are now “centres of mass death”.
Speaking in Khan Younis, he said: “Today, there were more than 150 injuries and more than 20 martyrs at the aid distribution centres… the Israeli occupation deliberately kills and commits genocide. The Israeli occupation is carrying out a policy of mass murder.
“They call people to come get their daily food, and then, when citizens arrive at these centres, they are killed in cold blood.
“All the victims have gunshot wounds to the head and chest, meaning the enemy is committing these crimes deliberately.”
Israel has rejected genocide accusations and denies targeting civilians.
Two boys mourn their brother at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Pic: Reuters
‘Lies being peddled’
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the controversial US and Israeli-backed group which operates the distribution centre near Rafah, said: “Hamas is claiming there was violence at our aid distribution sites today. False.
“Once again, there were no incidents at or in the immediate vicinity of our sites.
“But that’s not stopping some from spreading the lies being peddled by ‘officials’ at the Hamas-controlled Nasser Hospital.”
The Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah has recorded more than 250 fatalities and treated more than 3,400 “weapon-wounded patients” since new food distribution sites were set up in Gaza on 27 May.
Read more:
‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points
’10 children killed’ waiting for Gaza health clinic to open
Israel says permanent ceasefire ‘questionable’
Palestinians inspect the wreckage after an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah. Pic: AP
It comes after four children and two women were among at least 13 people who died in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli strikes pounded the area starting late on Friday, officials in Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the territory said.
Fifteen others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not responded to a request for comment on the reported deaths.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Israeli has been carrying out attacks in Gaza since Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on 7 October 2023.
Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.
But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The latest fatalities in Gaza comes as a 20-year-old Palestinian-American man was beaten to death by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health ministry said.
Sayafollah Musallet, also known as Saif, was killed during a confrontation between Palestinians and settlers in Sinjil, north of Ramallah, the ministry said.
A second man, Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, died after being shot in the chest.
Mr Musallet’s family, from Tampa Florida, has called on the US State Department to lead an “immediate investigation”.
A State Department spokesperson said it was aware of the incident but it had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.
The Israeli military said the confrontation broke out after Palestinians threw rocks at Israelis, lightly injuring them.
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