Broken, amputated: The children who left Gaza

Italian summer camp children peppered Shaymaa Shady, six, with questions about how she lost her leg.

“Ha fatto la guerra,” one child said. She went to war.

Urgently needing medical care, she and 15 other children evacuated from the Gaza Strip months ago.

Sarah Yusuf, six, her pelvis broken in an Israeli strike, can now play without limping.

Ahmad al-Saafen, four, is still learning to use his new leg, a replacement for one he lost under Israeli bombardment over a year ago.

Baian Azoum was pulled from Gaza’s rubble in critical condition. She faces nearly two years of treatment ahead, only four years old in an unfamiliar land.

The children and their caretakers know little of the language or the culture. They know even less of what may happen to them or their loved ones in the months to come.

They do know war.

Sixteen young people, all but one younger than 15, were evacuated from Gaza to Italy early in 2024 after sustaining dire injuries in the war there between Israel and Hamas. The airlifts were the result of painstaking negotiations between aid groups and several governments, including Israel, Egypt and Italy, and each of the wounded was accompanied by a caretaker, usually a relative.

Some of the children had limbs amputated to save their lives. Many will bear scars for life. Most have lost family members and left behind others whose safety is uncertain. All face uncertain futures, with questions about whether there will ever be a home to return to or if they should apply for asylum.

“Italy is beautiful, but I need support,” said Ms Lina Gamal, Shaymaa’s aunt and caretaker, listing the many family members she left behind. “As long as I have no one around me, it’s nothing.”

But the evacuees still consider themselves fortunate. Since Hamas led its Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel from Gaza, and the Israelis responded with a devastating military campaign, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Tens of thousands more are believed to be permanently disabled in the largely ruined enclave.

The children face not only difficult recoveries, but also the challenges of schoolyards and summer camps filled with peers who neither speak their native language nor know much about the devastation in Gaza.

When Shaymaa first joined summer camp, “no one noticed anything”, said Ms Guilia Mingardi, one of her teachers. “Things changed when we first went to the swimming pool. That’s when all the questions started.”

After swimming, one classmate cautiously tried to touch her prosthesis. Shaymaa frowned at the boy and covered herself up. When the children asked her questions about what happened, she ignored them.

An explosion in January 2024 near her family’s house in southern Gaza cost Shaymaa the limb. Italian doctors had to perform a second amputation, in part to stop an infection, and then fit her for a prosthesis.

At first, Shaymaa struggled to use it, limping, said Ms Gamal, who lives with her niece in government housing alongside families from Nigeria and Ukraine.

But Shaymaa adapted quickly. Racing down the corridor, she sometimes trips and falls. Now she immediately gets up, fixes her loose shoe and starts running again.

Ahmad is still struggling with his prosthesis. He lost his leg when an Israeli bombardment hit his family’s home in October 2023 in the central Gaza town of Nuseirat. His sister’s legs and shoulder were severely injured, and his mother’s shoulder and leg were broken.

His 35-year-old father, Mr Montaser al-Saafen, was unharmed.

“When I realised what had happened, I went through the rubble, bringing out my family members one by one, including the body of my mother and the remains of my father,” he said.

Twelve family members were killed in the attack, and 15 wounded. Afterwards, Mr al-Saafen managed to take his 12-year-old daughter, Rema, to Egypt for treatment, while Ahmad and their mother remained in a Gaza hospital.

Rema struggled in Egypt, refusing to speak, her father said. She began to feel better only four months later, when her mother and Ahmad joined them there.

The four family members were eventually airlifted to Italy for treatment, but they were forced to leave two children – Samir, 10, and Fayza, seven – behind with relatives in Gaza.

Rema was at risk of needing amputation when the family arrived in Italy, but doctors managed to save her legs. Her condition is slowly improving, though doctors say she will need plastic surgery.

Ahmad, growing fast, needs to change his prosthesis every nine months. He never wants it far from his reach.

“Where is my leg?” he asked his father as he was buckled up for a visit to an orthopaedic centre in Bologna, Italy, to test a new prosthetic. “Don’t keep it in the back. Bring it here next to me.”

The family applied for asylum in Italy to continue their children’s treatment. They also applied to bring their two other children as soon as they are allowed to leave Gaza.

Baian, the young girl pulled from the rubble, had no immediate family members who could join her on the journey to Italy for emergency treatment. Her mother and father, as well as her seven-year-old twin siblings and her seven-month-old sister, were killed in a bombardment that hit her Gaza neighbourhood in December 2023, said her aunt, Ms Fatma Hasanain.

The attack hit the area a day before Baian’s fourth birthday, and she was found with her head buried under rubble, Ms Hasanain said. She sustained wounds to her head, broken teeth and a fractured leg. She still has a limp.

Rescuers took Baian to a hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, where her leg was operated on. By the time relatives reached her, Ms Hasanain said, doctors were warning that Baian was in critical condition and needed to travel if there was any hope for her survival.

Ms Hasanain, 34, reached Gaza’s southern border crossing with Egypt, along with her five-year-old daughter, Layal. But the authorities would not let the girl cross, saying they needed her father’s approval.

With no internet or phone service, Ms Hasanain could not reach her husband, so her daughter had to return with Ms Hasanain’s mother into Gaza, where she remains in a tent in Khan Younis.

“I’m devastated to be away from my daughter,” Ms Hasanain said.

From Egypt, Baian and her aunt travelled to Bologna in February.

In Italy, Baian has spent time in four hospitals, and her condition has greatly improved. She has learnt some Italian and started swimming classes as therapy for her leg. Since doctors say that Baian’s treatment will take almost two years, Ms Hasanain has applied for asylum and to bring her daughter to join them.

Many of the children’s scars are unseen. Sarah freezes when she hears fireworks pop over Bologna at night. Once, with a pale face, she asked her caretaker and a cousin of Sarah’s father, Ms Niveen Foad: “Can the Israelis reach here?”

Sarah was badly injured in November 2023 in a strike that hit her family’s home in central Gaza. The attack left her pregnant mother partially paralysed, her father missing and her two-year-old brother killed, said Ms Foad.

Ms Foad agreed to be her caretaker for the evacuation – it was unclear who else could – on the condition that she could bring three of her own daughters, now three, 12 and 15 years old.

Ms Foad, who had never left Gaza before, now finds herself living in a foreign country with four children. She said she does not regret the decision, even if its consequences are hard to predict.

“Once I crossed the border and reached Egypt, I felt that this was perhaps the first step towards estrangement, where one leaves his family behind and starts a new life,” she said.

But she constantly worries about the five older children she had to leave in Gaza, especially when attacks land close to where they are staying. During the deadly Israeli rescue operation in Nuseirat, she said, one of her sons called her, saying their turn had arrived.

“I wash my face with tears every morning, thinking, ‘Will I ever be able to see my kids and my parents one day in Gaza?’” Ms Foad asked.

But she also wants to make the most of her time in Italy. She is taking Italian lessons and hopes to continue her education and open a business selling Palestinian food. Her three children and Sarah started school in September.

Still, the feelings of homesickness can be hard to bear for the young Palestinians in Italy. Every time Shaymaa sees an aeroplane, she makes the same request: “Please take me back to Gaza.” NYTIMES