{"id":9257,"date":"2024-03-25T10:32:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T10:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/25\/the-first-flight-of-their-lives-an-airlift-after-agony-terror-in-gaza\/"},"modified":"2024-03-25T10:32:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T10:32:28","slug":"the-first-flight-of-their-lives-an-airlift-after-agony-terror-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/25\/the-first-flight-of-their-lives-an-airlift-after-agony-terror-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Flight of Their Lives: An Airlift After Agony Terror in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/12\/multimedia\/xxitaly-gaza-01-fvbp\/xxitaly-gaza-01-fvbp-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"The First Flight of Their Lives: An Airlift After Agony Terror in Gaza\" title=\"The First Flight of Their Lives: An Airlift After Agony Terror in Gaza\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<div class=\"css-zera2v\">\n<div class=\"css-103l8m3\">\n<div class=\"css-1e2jphy epjyd6m1\">\n<div class=\"css-233int epjyd6m0\">\n<p class=\"css-1xuzukf e1jsehar1\"><span class=\"byline-prefix\">Photographs by <\/span><span class=\"css-1baulvz last-byline\" itemprop=\"name\">Nariman El-Mofty<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1xuzukf e1jsehar1\"><span class=\"byline-prefix\">Text by <\/span><span class=\"css-1baulvz\" itemprop=\"name\">Nariman El-Mofty<\/span> and <span class=\"css-1baulvz last-byline\" itemprop=\"name\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/alan-yuhas\" class=\"css-n8ff4n e1jsehar0\">Alan Yuhas<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"enhanced-byline\" class=\"css-8atqhb\">\n<p class=\"css-m7kxl4 e1wtpvyy0\">Nariman El-Mofty spent eight days with a group of Gazan children and their caretakers and joined them on an Italian military flight from Cairo to Rome, then to Pisa, Italy. She traveled with two families in ambulances to a hospital in Bologna, Italy, where the children are receiving treatment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Each of the children survived horrors. Each lost relatives in the strikes that injured them. All have struggled with the emotions of what they went through and what they face ahead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The evacuees make up only a tiny fraction of the thousands of civilians, including many children, who have suffered grievous injuries over the course of Israel\u2019s monthslong campaign against Hamas and its bombardment of Gaza. Health officials in the territory say that more than 31,000 Gazans have been killed since the war began on Oct. 7, in response to the attack that Hamas led against Israel. Experts say that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/11\/18\/world\/middleeast\/gaza-children-israel.html\" title=\"\">children are particularly vulnerable<\/a> to burns and serious injuries from high-intensity attacks, especially in a crowded, urban environment like Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The explosion that injured Shaymaa, 5, in the southern Gazan village of Al Mawasi in January, killed her grandmother, badly injured her grandfather and mangled the girl\u2019s foot, according to Lina Gamal, Shaymaa\u2019s aunt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Shaymaa was rushed to Nasser Hospital, where doctors quickly decided to amputate. They no longer had anesthesia, alcohol or other means to clean the wound, forcing the doctors to rinse it with murky water. They performed a rapid surgery and hurried to help other wounded people crowding the halls, Ms. Gamal said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For three days, Ms. Gamal said, Shaymaa was \u201calways screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Gamal stayed at her niece\u2019s side through sleepless nights. Like many others, she registered the injured child for a chance to evacuate, through aid groups and several governments, to a hospital abroad \u2014 maybe Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey or Italy. Ms. Gamal offered herself as a caretaker, as Shaymaa\u2019s parents needed to look after her siblings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was not until February, after lengthy background checks and negotiations \u2014 between officials of those countries and Egypt and Israel, as well as aid groups \u2014 that Shaymaa learned she was in the small group selected to evacuate, Ms. Gamal said. From around Gaza, the children and their caretakers journeyed toward the border city of Rafah, facing Israeli shelling and desperate competition for food, Ms. Gamal said. From there they crossed into Egypt, where they were airlifted to Italy, on what for all of them was the first flight of their lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute in Bologna, though, doctors concluded that Shaymaa would need a second amputation to repair the damage from where her foot was removed and to stop an infection from spreading, Ms. Gamal said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When Ms. Gamal heard the news, she collapsed to the floor, sobbing. She had watched Shaymaa become withdrawn and fearful after the first amputation, rarely laughing and often crying at a glimpse of her leg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen they change her dressing, she doesn\u2019t like to see it. She starts to scream,\u201d Ms. Gamal said. \u201cEvery time she sees her leg, she screams, \u2018Cover me! Cover me!\u2019 \u2014 not for people, for herself. She doesn\u2019t want to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Shaymaa found some comfort with another evacuee, Sarah Yusuf, and her caretaker, Niveen Foad. Sarah, 5, had been badly injured in November in a strike that hit her family\u2019s home, in Zawaida near Deir al Balah in central Gaza. The attack left her pregnant mother partly paralyzed, her father missing and her 2-year-old brother killed, said Ms. Foad, a cousin of Sarah\u2019s father.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She said she had found the girl with widespread burns and a broken pelvis at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen I saw her, Sarah was in a terrible state,\u201d said Ms. Foad, 44. \u201cThe marks are still there. Her legs were all wrapped up. I decided from that moment that I will foster this child.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By then, Ms. Foad had fled with her own family from Gaza City, seeking refuge from fighting and Israeli strikes. She instructed her children to walk at a distance from one another, as she said armies did. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI told my children, let\u2019s not walk next to each other, we should not walk side by side,\u201d Ms. Foad said. \u201cWe will walk like the military \u2014 one here, one there, one there \u2014 so that if a bomb falls, we will all not die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her children resisted, saying they would rather hold hands and stay close, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After Sarah took shelter with them, Ms. Foad\u2019s husband registered the girl for evacuation. Ms. Foad agreed to be her caretaker \u2014 it was unclear who else could \u2014 on the condition that she could bring her three daughters, ages 3, 9 and 13. Officials agreed, and they eventually crossed into Egypt, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Gamal said she had been to Egypt before the war, but no one else in the group said they had ever left Gaza. None had ever boarded a plane, let alone flown. The pilots invited the children to see the cockpit of the military plane, and Italian medics brought toys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some of the women asked whether all planes looked like this on the inside \u2014 they had seen pictures of commercial flights, not cavernous military carriers \u2014 and the children stared out the windows in wonder at the waves and landscapes below.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Anxiety about the future followed. Most of the women had hoped to reach Qatar, where they might find relatives or friends. The evacuees knew little to nothing about Italy, its language or its culture. Nor did they know, on arrival, whether they would have to seek asylum, be allowed to bring family or be forced to leave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And despite the warm welcome from Italian officials and doctors, the children could not shed memories of Gaza. One morning in Monza, Italy, the sight of a plane over the hospital room of Abdel Rahman Al Naasan, 5, filled him with fear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe thought it would bomb us,\u201d said his grandmother, Rehab Al Naasan. \u201cHe closed his eyes. He put his hands on his ears and leaned on the ground. He\u2019s terrified. This whole generation of children is terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When his family\u2019s neighborhood in northern Gaza was bombarded in early December, three pieces of shrapnel struck Abdel Rahman, fracturing his skull. His 8-year-old brother was killed, Ms. Al Naasan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The survivors raced Abdel Rahman to a hospital, where displaced people thronged and the injured screamed on the floor, she said. There was no clean water or food, and Ms. Al Naasan said they had to search for a doctor to stitch the boy\u2019s wound and bandage his head. That was all they could do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By the time he and his grandmother reached Egypt, small things terrified him. At night in Gaza, he would urge his grandmother to turn off a flashlight, fearing it would lead to an airstrike, Ms. Al Naasan said. When Italian officials welcomed him in Egypt, he clutched his grandmother\u2019s hand, frightened they were actually Israelis. When he was told about the plan to go to Italy, Abdel Rahman said, \u201cWhat if there will be bombing there? I don\u2019t want to go,\u201d according to Ms. Al Naasan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Italian doctors at San Gerardo Hospital in Monza, who evaluated the boy, said they were astounded by his condition: They feared he would be doing far worse with three pieces of shrapnel still in his skull. He would need intensive surgery and a lengthy recovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Shaymaa, too, would have a long period of convalescence, growing close to Sarah at the facility in Bologna, where staff members tried to comfort them. Many of the evacuated Gazans exchanged WhatsApp numbers, checking in on one another as they learned how to navigate Italy and as they weighed whether to apply for asylum \u2014 a decision that could keep them there indefinitely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Gamal said she remained conflicted about seeking asylum, torn between hope to someday return to Gaza and the reality of what she saw. \u201cHonestly, Gaza is destroyed,\u201d she said. \u201cIf people want to return to their homes, there are no homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Al Naasan, on the other hand, was inclined to stay. \u201cThere is nothing to go back to,\u201d she said. \u201cOur children can\u2019t eat, they keep crying. No food, no flour. The rest of my family would die to come here. I hope I am able to bring them, because look at it and what it has become. It is not a place to live at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For now, Abdel Rahman remains at the hospital with his grandmother. With Sarah awaiting surgery, Ms. Foad and her children moved into an apartment for refugees in Bologna. Ms. Gamal and Shaymaa are at a women\u2019s home, alongside refugees from Ukraine and Somalia, waiting for a prosthetic and making hospital visits for therapy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They all feel relief to be out of Gaza and worry about everyone else still there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photographs by Nariman El-Mofty Text by Nariman El-Mofty and Alan Yuhas Nariman El-Mofty spent eight days with a group of Gazan children and their caretakers and joined them on an Italian military flight from Cairo to Rome, then to Pisa, Italy. She traveled with two families in ambulances to a hospital in Bologna, Italy, where [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/12\/multimedia\/xxitaly-gaza-01-fvbp\/xxitaly-gaza-01-fvbp-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14165,14164,850,43,12976,11924],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9259,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257\/revisions\/9259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}