Gaza's injured children face nightmares, trauma amid escalating Israeli aggression

By Hosni Nadim

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Fayza Abdul Aziz, 11, and Mira Ayash, 8, two Palestinian girls who were injured in separate Israeli attacks in the southern Gaza Strip, are currently hospitalized at the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis City.

The scenes of the Israeli bombardment haunt the girls in the form of "terrifying nightmares."

The girls are among thousands of children who have been injured since the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7. They are experiencing difficult health conditions due to a shortage of medical services.

The death toll of Palestinian children killed in the ongoing Israeli aggression for the past three months reached 9,280 children, according to Palestinian figures.

- Shellshock and harsh scenes

"I was walking on the road with two of my brothers, my cousin, and my aunt's daughter. Suddenly, an Israeli missile hit a car passing by us," Fayza recalled the details of the targeting with a trembling voice.

"Due to the intensity of the bombing, the blow threw us far from the place where we were walking. After falling to the ground, I ran quickly out of fear, despite the pain I felt in my face and the blood flowing from it, unaware of what happened to me," she added.

The biggest shock, as she expressed it, was when she found her two brothers and her cousin's daughter lying on the ground, covered in blood as "martyrs."

"After being evacuated to Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, it was then revealed that my eyes were seriously injured," she said tremulously.

She was later transferred to the Gaza European Hospital to resume treatment.

"Now I can see with only one eye after losing my second eye. Isn't this a tragedy?! What is my fault, and what crime did I commit to lose my brothers?!" she added agonizingly.

"At night, I can never sleep due to intense fear and pain. And if I try to sleep for a moment, I am haunted by terrifying nightmares that remind me of those horrifying moments during the bombardment, the Palestinian girl expressed.

Despite repeated efforts, the afflicted child finds herself unable to erase the moments of targeting and scenes of corpses.

She is overwhelmed by an intense fear of what lies ahead, coupled with profound sorrow for the loss of her loved ones, as expressed, she said.

- Horrifying moments

On a neighboring bed lies the child Mira, grappling with pain in her leg resulting from injuries sustained by fragments of an Israeli missile.

Reflecting on the moment of injury, she recounts, "I was playing outside with my siblings when the airstrike took place in the area we had evacuated to coming from Gaza, leading to injuries for both me and everyone with me."

In a hushed and trembling voice, she said, "We were immediately evacuated to the hospital, where doctors discovered a wound caused by shrapnel in my foot that resulted in significant fractures and bone tearing."

Describing the moments of bombardment, the girl termed the incident as "horrifying," and she said wonderingly, "As children, what have we done to be targeted? I witnessed harsh scenes and images in the hospital that sent shivers down my spine."

Mira wished for a swift recovery, hoping to be able to "resume her life as normal as it once was."

In this respect, Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said that 70% of the casualties in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip are children and women.

Israel has launched air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 22,185 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,035 others injured, according to Gaza's health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicines.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio