NEW YORK — Omar Abu Kweik is far from his home in Gaza. A four-year-old boy lost part of his arm after his parents and sister were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
He is one of the lucky ones.
Through the efforts of family members and strangers, Omar was brought from Gaza to the United States, where he received medical treatment including a prosthetic arm. Accompanied by his aunt, he spent his days in a home run by a medical charity in New York City.
It was a small blessing in a sea of turmoil for him and his aunt Maha Abu Kweik as they faced an uncertain future.
The sadness and despair of those who still remain trapped in Gaza It’s never far.
Abu Quaik is happy to be able to do this for his beloved brother’s son, whom he now considers his fourth child.
But it was a terrible choice.Going with Omar meant leaving her husband and three teenage children behind on the vast property. tent camping It is located in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza. As Israel carries out airstrikes in areas where civilians have been told to evacuate, Including Rafa.Abu Quaik knows he may never see his family again.
“My kids love Omar,” she said. “They told me, ‘We’re not kids anymore.’ Let’s go and get Omar treated. That’s what’s best for him. It’s his only chance.”
She said Omar was an outgoing boy but intelligent, like his late father, who was an engineer. Now he often withdraws and starts crying easily. He wonders why they don’t have homes like the kids he sees on YouTube.
When I questioned Omar, he covered his ears with the stumps of his right and left arms and declared, “I don’t want to talk.”
“Kindergarten was good,” he finally admitted. “I was happy on the first day.” He started school a few weeks before the war began. However, he says that he does not want to go to kindergarten anymore because he is afraid of leaving his aunt’s side.
But the flight to New York may have given him a new dream.
“When I grow up, I want to be a pilot so I can take people places,” Omar said.
Omar was the first Palestinian child rescued from Gaza by the World Medical Relief Fund. Elissa Montanti, founder of Staten Island Charities, has spent a quarter-century providing free medical care to hundreds of children who lost limbs in wars and disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Every child started out as a stranger. Each will join what she calls her “global family” and return to the United States to get her new prosthetic limb as her body grows. Her charity sponsors all non-medical donations, primarily from Shriners Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.
when war in gaza After October’s major eruption, Montanti knew he had to help. “But frankly, I said, ‘How? How can we get children out of Gaza when they can’t even leave? ”
Montanti had never laid eyes on Omar, but she knew it. kids like him He was seriously injured every day.
The deadliest Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades has erupted. October 7th When Hamas-led militants broke through Israeli security barriers around the Gaza Strip and entered Israeli communities. Approximately 1,200 people died and approximately 250 died. taken hostage.
Israel is abandoned waste Many people in Gaza responded. Less than five months into the war, Israeli forces have unleashed a staggering humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents fleeing their homes. 1 rating It suggests that half of the buildings in the coastal enclave were damaged or destroyed.
The death toll in Gaza exceeded 30,000 on Thursday, with more than 70,000 injured, according to the Health Ministry.Ministry do not differentiate The statistics show statistics among civilians and combatants, but say women and children account for about two-thirds of the deaths. Israel says extremists are active among the population and blames Hamas for civilian deaths.
Two weeks after the war began, Omar’s family narrowly escaped death. They evacuated the Gaza City apartment they had bought months earlier minutes before it was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. My aunt’s family came running out of the building next door. That too was bombed.
Homeless and with only the clothes on his back, his family split up and stayed with different relatives. But in times of war, seemingly trivial decisions, such as where to take shelter, can have serious consequences.
On December 6, two Israeli airstrikes struck Omar’s grandparents’ home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The explosion ripped the skin off his face, revealing a layer of fresh pink dotted with deep gashes. His left arm was unable to save him below the elbow. His parents, 6-year-old sister, grandparents, two aunts, and a cousin were killed.
Omar was trapped under rubble as rescue workers dug through the soot-blackened concrete by hand. Finally they reached his small body, still warm and bleeding, but he was somehow alive and they lifted him to safety. He was the only survivor.
A few weeks later, Omar lies in a bed in a hospital hallway with his arm bandaged, vaguely imagining in his child’s mind that it might grow again.of Collapsed medical system In Gaza, only rudimentary treatment was available for burns on the legs and torso.
Adib Choiki, vice president of the U.S.-based charity Rama Worldwide, who heard about Omar from the organization’s humanitarian team in Gaza, said: “Our view is that It was better for him to be anywhere than to be there.”
Israel and Egypt have severely restricted the movement of people from the Gaza Strip, allowing only a few hundred people to leave each day, most of them foreign nationals. Some Palestinians were able to escape using private brokers. The World Health Organization said 2,293 patients (1,498 injured and 795 sick) left Gaza for treatment along with 1,625 of their companions. However, the United Nations refugee agency says around 8,000 patients are still on waiting lists to travel abroad.
Choiki began contacting officials in the Palestinian, Israeli, and Egyptian governments. He had Omar and Abu Kweik issued new passports, and his aunt obtained an Israeli security permit to accompany her nephew from Gaza to Egypt.
Abu Quaik was taking a leap of faith. The permission to leave Gaza comes as Montanti continues to work to obtain U.S. government approval for Omar to fly to New York.
“He was crying and crying and begging me to take him back to his children,” Abu Kweik said. “Eventually we put him in an ambulance and drove him to the border.”
After a tense wait while their documents were checked, they were loaded into an Egyptian ambulance and transported across the Sinai Desert.
Omar and his aunt were safely admitted to an Egyptian military hospital, but they waited several weeks for permission from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to fly to New York on January 17.
Omar’s wounds are healing, but he remains deeply traumatized. She underwent skin graft surgery for severe burns on her leg at Shriners Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. His face is dotted with gray splinter-like scars that look almost like freckles.
Eager to wear his new prosthetic arm, he flashed a mischievous smile Wednesday as he approached the hand resting on the table and reached out to touch it. “You have good arms.”
“The kids feel energized,” Montanti said. “Psychologically, it means a lot.”
Shriners is currently treating two other children from Gaza, including an American who was trapped in Gaza when the war began. There are plans to bring in another boy from Gaza, a two-year-old boy whose leg was amputated above the knee. Her mother will also accompany her, leaving her family behind for the child.
The day after the boy grabbed his arm, Omar and his aunt boarded a plane back to Cairo. They will be accompanied by members of her extended family who have a home in Egypt and will stay there to secure more permanent housing.
“I can hardly sleep,” Abu Quaik said. “I think about Omar and I think about the children and the situation they are living in in tents.”
There is a shortage of food.of israel Almost complete lockdown expelled more than 500,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip towards starvation caused concern that impending famine. And the flimsy tent she shares with 40 others offers little protection from the elements, she says. When one person gets sick, the disease spreads like wildfire.
Although cell phone and internet services have been repeatedly cut off in the Gaza Strip due to the war, Abu Kweik continues to stay in touch “when there is a network.” Her family often has to walk to Kuwait Hospital, the journalist’s base, to receive a signal.
After returning to Egypt, Omar and his aunt’s future is uncertain.they may be stuck in exile.
But for Abu Quaik, Omar has no home to return to.
“I can’t imagine going back to Gaza,” she said. “What will his life be like? Where will his future lie?
