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It was July 2024, and Raed Marouf, 21, was collecting firewood near his home in northern Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ran into three friends in the street,\u201d he said. \u201cWe stopped to catch up before two Israeli drone missiles targeted us.\u201d<\/p>\n
One friend was killed instantly, and the others were wounded while Raed bled profusely before losing consciousness.<\/p>\n
Raed woke up to find himself in Jabaliya\u2019s Al-Awda Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth my legs had been amputated,\u201d he said, adding that his left hand was severely injured.<\/p>\n
Later, due to complications and a lack of proper treatment, doctors determined that the hand had to be amputated.<\/p>\n
The collapse of Gaza\u2019s healthcare system during that period as a result of Israeli attacks on hospitals, in addition to months of blockade and starvation in the north, made Raed\u2019s recovery nearly impossible.<\/p>\n
For seven months, he moved between Al-Awda Hospital and his sister\u2019s house in Jabaliya, where he and his family were sheltering after their house in Jabaliya was bombed.<\/p>\n
With the scarcity of clean water and absence of basic sanitation, gangrene set in to Raed\u2019s wounds, forcing doctors to remove more tissue from his legs.<\/p>\n
As hospitals were overcrowded and lacked critical medical supplies, Raed\u2019s family had to search for the basics themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no gauze, no bandages,\u201d Raed said. \u201cMy family went from pharmacy to pharmacy looking for anything. They even paid a private nurse to check my wounds because there weren\u2019t enough medical personnel in northern Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raed\u2019s family tried to buy him whatever food was available to help his wounds heal, even at exorbitant prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now more than $10,000 in debt because of my injury,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Around August 2024, Raed was transferred to the International Medical Corps in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. But after three months, he had to leave that hospital when it became overwhelmed with casualties from Israeli attacks.<\/p>\n
He received a medical referral for treatment abroad, but medical evacuations were largely halted when the Israeli army invaded Rafah in May 2024.<\/p>\n
Today, Raed lives with constant pain in his amputated limbs. Without prosthetics or an electric wheelchair, even basic tasks like bathing, dressing and using the bathroom require assistance.<\/p>\n
He also cannot attend physiotherapy due to transportation costs and his family\u2019s financial situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to depend on myself,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I feel helpless when I can\u2019t move without someone helping me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI dream of traveling to get prosthetic limbs,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to work. I want a normal life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raed and his family are now staying in a flimsy tent on the beach of western Gaza City.<\/p>\n
Not far from Raed\u2019s tent lives Omar Halawa, 13, and his family, displaced from Jabaliya refugee camp after their home was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in January 2024.<\/p>\n
On 1 October 2025, Omar and two of his cousins were waiting for a charity water truck near their tent on Gaza City\u2019s beach.<\/p>\n
At around 8 am, Israeli shells began to strike in the area of the water queue, two shells landing near Omar.<\/p>\n
Omar\u2019s parents, Yasmin and Adnan, heard the explosions from inside their tent followed by shrapnel hitting nearby.<\/p>\n
Adnan rushed outside when, moments later, three young men ran toward their tent, asking if they were Omar\u2019s parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told us he was injured in his leg and had been taken to the hospital,\u201d Yasmin, 37, told The Electronic Intifada. \u201cI screamed and his father kept slapping his face, unable to believe what he was hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yasmin ran barefoot nearly three kilometers toward Al-Shifa Hospital and then to the nearby Patient\u2019s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital, but didn\u2019t find Omar in either.<\/p>\n
Doctors at the Patient\u2019s Friends hospital told Yasmin he might have been transferred to the Palestine Red Crescent Society field hospital in central Gaza City.<\/p>\n
She trekked there while \u201cpraying he was alive,\u201d Yasmin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went in screaming, \u2018Where is my son? Where is Omar?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A doctor carrying a cardboard box approached her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me, \u2018Your son is in surgery. This is his leg.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Yasmin fainted.<\/p>\n
After Omar woke from surgery, he felt an absence in the lower half of his body.<\/p>\n
He told The Electronic Intifada that the first shell had hit just meters from his cousins Hamoud and Moath, pushing them up into the air. In an instant, he heard the whistle of a second shell before he was thrown to the ground and lost consciousness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I opened my eyes, I saw my legs covered in blood,\u201d Omar said. \u201cI tried to pull myself away and crawl but I fainted again. I woke up to find myself in the hospital. [My right] leg was amputated. The other was seriously injured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Yasmin tried to hide the appalling news, Omar later learned that his cousins, both of them also 13, were killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I had died with them,\u201d he said. \u201cI keep thinking about how they are gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a week, Omar returned to the tent, where his parents wheel him daily to the Artificial Limbs and Polio Center, in eastern Gaza City, for physiotherapy.<\/p>\n
The family has\u00a0appealed<\/a>\u00a0on social media and asked doctors about getting him a prosthetic limb. They were told they are not available in Gaza due to the Israeli restrictions on movement in and out of Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish I could walk again without crutches,\u201d Omar said. \u201cI can\u2019t sleep at night. I keep thinking about that day, and about my life now as an amputee without a prosthetic.\u201d<\/p>\n Omar and Raed are among at least 6,000 amputation cases that require urgent, long-term rehabilitation programs,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the Ministry of Health in Gaza as of December 2025. Of the 6,000, 25 percent are children, like Omar.<\/p>\n Gaza has the largest number of child amputees worldwide,\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.<\/p>\n On 20 August 2025, Ahmad Herzallah, an electrician from Gaza City\u2019s al-Nasr neighborhood, was walking home with his only son, 13-year-old Oday, from a nearby school in Beach refugee camp where Oday was playing football.<\/p>\n Ahmad had his hand on Oday\u2019s shoulder, as they were about to cross a busy street where several schools that had been turned into shelters for displaced families were located.<\/p>\n Around 9:30 pm, a blast struck near the gate of a school,\u00a0killing<\/a>\u00a0six people and injuring at least 10.<\/p>\n \u201cMy son was thrown almost three meters by the force of this explosion,\u201d Ahmad, 41, told The Electronic Intifada.<\/p>\n Two minutes later, Ahmad said, everything went black. \u201cI lost my sight. I could only see darkness and blackness.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahmad\u2019s instinct was to reach toward Oday and help him, but he couldn\u2019t as his left leg had been severely injured while his face was burned and filled with shrapnel.<\/p>\n After Ahmad and Oday were taken to Gaza City\u2019s Al-Shifa Hospital, Ahmad was transferred by ambulance to the nearby Al-Quds Hospital.<\/p>\n Ahmad said he vomited large amounts of blood, as shrapnel had torn into his abdomen, damaging his spleen, liver and pancreas.<\/p>\n He went from one surgery to another to remove shrapnel. Each time Ahmad woke, he asked the same question: Where is Oday?<\/p>\n Doctors amputated three toes from his left foot and the pinky finger from his right hand, but his left leg still contains shrapnel and is badly injured. Doctors told him that over time, the body would push them out.<\/p>\n Ahmad had fractured bones in his right hand, and his body rejected the metal plate that doctors had attempted to insert, leaving his hand swollen and inflamed and causing him intense pain.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until two weeks after the blast that Ahmad\u2019s older brother told him that Oday had been killed and was already buried.<\/p>\n \u201cI accepted losing my eyes,\u201d he said, \u201cbut not my son.\u201d<\/p>\n After the surgeries and amputations, doctors in Gaza City\u2019s Governmental Eye Hospital initially considered removing both eyes, but testing showed that his right eye could still detect strong flashlight light. His left eye was removed in October last year.<\/p>\n Although Ahmad has undergone multiple surgeries in his right eye, doctors told him he needs highly specialized care with advanced equipment \u2013 unavailable in Gaza \u2013 to treat it.<\/p>\n Ahmad\u2019s hand remains in a splint due to the unhealed fracture, leaving him unable to begin necessary physiotherapy. He exercises at home, and sometimes his brother helps him.<\/p>\n His wife Hadeel, 31, and his two daughters, Jana, 15, and Ruaa, 13, also assist him inside the home. The couple also has two younger daughters, Misk, 4, and Najah, 2.<\/p>\n Accessing treatment from organizations like Doctors Without Borders requires very long waits, Ahmad said, and transportation is extremely difficult.<\/p>\n Ahmad can\u2019t leave the house alone as he is unable to stand on his own. Dependency on others is the biggest challenge he faces.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to go anywhere by myself,\u201d he said. \u201cOutside, I need a man with me because I\u2019m often in a wheelchair. I try to rely on myself, but it is very, very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Suhair Daher, a mother from Jabaliya, has also accepted living with her amputation.<\/p>\n \u201cGod takes something from us, and He will compensate us \u2013 either in this world or in the hereafter,\u201d Suhair, 55, said of her faith, which gives her hope and strength.<\/p>\n Suhair\u2019s husband, Muhammad, was killed in Israel\u2019s attacks on Gaza in 2014. Suhair alone raised her eight children, one of whom is studying abroad while three others are married.<\/p>\n After their house in Jabaliya was bombed in December 2024, Suhair was displaced multiple times along with her daughter Samar, 27, and her three sons, Tariq, 31, Abdelrahman, 20, and Ahmad, 25, with Ahmad\u2019s two daughters, Alura, 3, and Siba, 2.<\/p>\n On the evening of 10 July 2025, the family, with the exception of Abdelrahman, was sheltering at a relative\u2019s house in Beach refugee camp near Gaza City.<\/p>\n Abdelrahman had gone out to buy snacks for his two nieces.<\/p>\n At around 9 pm, two missiles struck the house.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw my arm attached but shredded and covered in blood,\u201d Suhair said of the aftermath of the blast.<\/p>\n \u201cMy son Ahmad\u2019s leg was also attached but bleeding profusely. Our heads were bleeding.\u201d<\/p>\n Neighbors gathered, shouting for blankets to use as stretchers to carry the people they had pulled from the rubble.<\/p>\n After she was pulled out, mouth and eyes full of dust and debris, Suhair was rushed to Al-Shifa Hospital before losing consciousness.<\/p>\n Suhair was severely burned across her body and her face was swollen. Doctors had to amputate her left arm.<\/p>\n When she regained consciousness, Suhair\u2019s ears were perforated and filled with constant ringing that has not stopped.<\/p>\n Ahmad\u2019s left leg was amputated. His two daughters were injured as well \u2013 Alura incurred a head injury while Siba still needs surgery as tendons in one of her legs were severed.<\/p>\n Samar and Tariq were critically injured and placed in intensive care.<\/p>\n Samar died from her injuries on 17 July. Her brother Tariq died four days later.<\/p>\n Tariq left behind his pregnant wife, a 3-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son who were in another location at the time of the attack.<\/p>\n The family went back to Jabaliya after a nominal ceasefire was declared in October last year and is living in a tent next to their destroyed home.<\/p>\n Suhair and her son Ahmad attend a physiotherapy session every one or two months.<\/p>\n Ahmad was studying nursing at Gaza\u2019s University of Palestine and selling perfume before the attack.<\/p>\n Now he is trying to complete his studies, but the unreliable internet connection poses a challenge. He hopes for a prosthetic leg only so he can move comfortably and work to take care of his two daughters.<\/p>\n Suhair wants to rely on herself as much as she can, but \u201cit is very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSimple things exhaust me \u2013 making tea, cleaning, cooking, peeling vegetables, carrying a tray, washing dishes and clothes, tidying up mattresses, dressing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The spot where her arm was amputated still hurts, sending electric shocks through her body and causing intense pain.<\/p>\n She is also haunted by that fateful night every time she lies her head on the pillow.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember my children. I cry and pray for them.\u00a0Allah yirhamhum<\/em>\u00a0[May they rest in peace],\u201d she said. \u201cEven now, I imagine a missile falling on us.\u201d<\/p>\n From the pseudo ceasefire in October 2025 and until 16 February 2026, about 500 amputations have taken place across the tattered Gaza Strip,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).<\/p>\n But while it continues to maim people in Gaza, Israel severely restricts the entry of assistive products, including prosthetics, into the Strip, classifying them as \u201cdual-use\u201d items, ostensibly meaning they can have both civilian and military applications.<\/p>\n This makes getting a prosthetic limb for any amputee in Gaza nearly impossible.<\/p>\n \u201cI only wish for a prosthetic arm so I can live independently again,\u201d Suhair said.<\/p>\n\u201cWhere is Oday?\u201d<\/h2>\n
Haunted by a fateful night<\/h2>\n