GAZA, (PIC)
Four-year-old Rahaf Saad sits, unaware of the chaos around her, except for the fact that she lost her legs due to a treacherous Israeli airstrike that targeted her home in the western Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The small, beautiful, innocent Rahaf did nothing wrong and cannot comprehend the horror of genocide; she only knows that she lost her legs once and for all.
Bombed after the area was declared safe
Her father tells a reporter from the Palestinian Information Center that the Israeli occupation forces bombed their home after the area had been evacuated, following its designation as a safe zone. They returned home only for the occupation warplanes to bombard it again without any warning or justification. He added that Rahaf lost her limbs instantly, and her grandfather was killed.
At the time of the bombing, only Rahaf, her deceased grandfather, and her brother who suffered various injuries were in the house when the occupation forces destroyed it above their heads with arrogance and terror.
Since the incident, Rahaf has been suffering psychologically after losing her lower limbs.
“Where are my legs?”
“Where are my legs, Daddy? My legs are gone,” is a phrase that Rahaf repeats to her grieving father, who is pleading for her travel abroad for treatment, as the necessary medical care is unavailable in Gaza. He continued saying that when Rahaf sees other children walking on their feet, she goes into a hysterical crying fit, enduring a difficult psychological state.
All what her father dreams of now is to have prosthetic limbs fitted for his young daughter outside the Gaza Strip.
Thousands of amputees
According to a report published by the World Health Organization, approximately 4,000 amputations have been performed on children in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli aggression on October 7, 2023.
For its part, Doctors Without Borders reported that amputees in Gaza are at risk of life-threatening complications due to a lack of appropriate treatment and medical supplies, amid a shortage of equipment in all hospitals. Additionally, the continued closure of borders prevents access to treatment opportunities that could help them face physical and psychological challenges.
Rahaf’s father cries and wonders what sin his little girl committed to spend the rest of her life without limbs, in a shocking health and psychological state. Since the beginning of the genocide, children have been a primary target of the Israeli terror machine, with the martyrdom and injury of tens of thousands of them documented.