KHAN YUNIS, (PIC)
Noor Matar, a ten-year-old, narrates details of an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip from her hospital bed. The strike resulted in her shattered teeth, amputated legs, and injuries to her entire family.
In the pediatric surgery department of the European Gaza Hospital in the southern area of Gaza, Noor receives medical treatment, while her family lives in a tent on the hospital grounds, joining thousands of families displaced by the horrifying Israeli war.
The attack details
Between hope for recovery and the desire to meet her martyred brother, the wishes of the fair-haired Palestinian girl are distributed, a life turned into an unbearable hell by the occupying army.
Noor recounts the Israeli airstrike, saying, “I was at home, and suddenly a missile launched by the (Israeli) occupation forces hit the neighboring house as if an earthquake struck the place. I thought that I will die, but my cousin’s son pulled me from under the rubble and transported me to the Awda Hospital.”
The dream changed
The injured girl adds to Sanad News Agency that she “received treatment in three hospitals so far, but still cannot walk or play like her healthy peers.”
Noor, who once dreamed of becoming a doctor before her injury, continues, “Today, my only wish is to go to paradise to meet my martyr brother, his wife, and child. Israel killed them. They were innocent.”
Orthopedic doctor Mohamed Hassan, overseeing Noor’s case, describes it as “difficult” and states, “Most injuries here result from fractures and burns caused by the bombs Israel throws at homes. We haven’t seen anything like this before, the death rate has accordingly risen by one hundred percent.”
He adds, “Some cases, numbering in the dozens, are still receiving medical care in the hospital, and some urgently need treatment outside the Strip.”
Shocking numbers
Palestinian children pay a steep price due to Israel’s war on Gaza, described by the United Nations as the bloodiest and most intense in modern history.
Before the war erupted on October 7th, a third of Gaza’s children already needed support in the field of conflict-related trauma. Now, the need has significantly increased, not just for children but for the entire community, requiring mental health and psychosocial support services.
Health Ministry statistics in Gaza indicate that since the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7th until January 14th, about 10,400 children were among the more than 24,000 martyrs.
These shocking statistics, constantly increasing, reveal that Gaza’s children find themselves at the forefront of victims of the ongoing war for 105 days.
According to the Palestinian Statistics Center, about half of Gaza’s population is children, most of whom have only experienced life under Israel’s repeated sieges and wars.
Noor and her family, along with hundreds of families, left Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah due to intensified Israeli shelling earlier this month.
Awaiting relief
Noor’s mother told Sanad News Agency, “We evacuated from the city of Zahraa to the new camp in Nuseirat. Despite that, the occupation forces followed us and shelled the neighborhood where we lived, killing six people from our neighbors, and we suffered injuries.”
The grieving mother, who lost her son Khaled, his wife, and the infant girl at the start of the war, said, “The occupation forces deprived me of the dearest thing I have in the universe, robbed me of the apple of my eye, my grandson. I don’t know for what sin they bombed and killed them.”
She explained that her daughter Noor is the only girl among her male siblings, akin to the bird of the house, but today she is broken and sad all the time, screaming and in pain when moved, whether to the bathroom or under the sun’s rays.
“We are a peaceful family dreaming of living in peace, but faced with what Israel has done and is doing today, I offer my five children as sacrifices for Palestine and Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will continue to resist until we uproot Israel from our land, our holy sites, and our usurped country.”
Like most Palestinians, Noor’s mother, husband, and siblings live in a tent in the hospital courtyard, eagerly awaiting the moment they are allowed to return to their home in the central area of the Strip.
The grieving mother said, “When the war ends, I want to remove this tent and set it up over my destroyed house. I will live there until we rebuild our home anew.”
Meanwhile, Noor’s father, Mohammed Matar, said, “The killing, destruction, and intimidation carried out by Israel against civilians in Gaza will not lead our people to surrender. Whatever Israel does, the Palestinian people’s unity around resistance will not waver or retreat until the liberation of Palestine from the yoke of occupation.”
