British Broadcasting CorporationWARNING: Readers may find some details in this report disturbing
“Higher,” the little girl demanded, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Higher, higher.”
Zena was pushed on a swing in a small playground on the outskirts of the northern Italian city of Padua.
A normal scene anywhere in the world.
But two-year-old Zena couldn’t move her head properly. She was left with deep, still angry scars on the right side of her face, neck and scalp.
But now she is safe and well fed. She felt like she was flying.
Zeina is one of 5,000 people who have been allowed to leave Gaza to receive professional treatment abroad since the war broke out on Oct. 7 following a Hamas attack in southern Israel.
The World Health Organization says more than 22,000 Gazans have suffered life-changing injuries as a result of the conflict, but few have been allowed to leave the Strip since the Rafah crossing with Egypt was closed in May.
Zeina’s mother, Shaimaa, described the moment that led to her daughter’s injury while playing in a tent at her home in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, on March 17.
The family has fled Khan Younis’ home twice, first to Rafah and then to the vast “humanitarian zone” of Mawasi, where they thought they would be safe.
Shaima recalled that Zeina and her four-year-old sister Rana were playing together, hugging each other and telling each other “I love you, I love you” when there was a massive air raid nearby.
Terrified, Zena clung to her mother, who was holding a pot of scalding soup, which splashed onto her daughter.
“Her face and skin melted in front of me,” Sharma said. “I picked her up and walked barefoot down the street.”
Medical services were stretched thin, she said, but Zeina was eventually treated by Red Cross doctors at the European Hospital in Gaza, where she received a skin graft from her father’s leg and another on her own leg after arriving in Egypt More successful skin graft surgeries were performed.
Earlier this month, she flew from Egypt to Italy for more specialized treatment.
Alaa, 17, joined Zeina, who was seriously injured when her home in Gaza City was hit by an airstrike late last year. As soon as the two girls met, they immediately developed feelings for each other.
“I liked her immediately,” Ara said. “She suffered so much for such a young child. I’m older and sometimes the pain is too much for me. What about her?
Ala was trapped under the rubble for 16 hours, and when she was rescued, she discovered that her tailor father was dead. So did her two brothers, Nyle, a college student, and Weir, a nurse.
Their bodies were never recovered from the four-story ruins.
“I stayed awake under the rubble,” she told me.
“I couldn’t breathe properly because of the weight on my chest and body. I couldn’t move. I was just thinking about my family and what was happening to them.
In addition to her father and brother, she also lost her grandparents and aunt. She said they had nothing to do with Hamas.
“I lost the most precious person in my heart,” she said. “I was happy to go to Italy for treatment, but inside I felt sad for Gaza and its people.”
In a statement to the BBC, the IDF denied targeting civilians and said it took “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm” in operations to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities.
More than 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began nearly a year ago, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for the establishment of “multiple medical evacuation corridors” for injured Palestinians. It is said that only 219 patients have been allowed to leave the country since May.
Thanks to the persistence of UK charity Save the Children and US-based Kinder Relief, Zena and Ara were able to evacuate. It took them months to get them out – pleading with Israel, Egypt and the U.S. State Department for help.
“Honestly, Zeina and Alaa are the lucky ones who escaped,” said Nadia Ali of Kinder Relief, which accompanied the girls from Egypt to Italy. “We have had children who have been referred to us who have died while waiting to be discharged.”
It’s hard to say lucky when you realize the consequences of their injuries.
Both girls would then undergo months of painful physical therapy, followed by multiple rounds of surgeries.
Both Zena and Ara are under the care of Italy’s top burns experts.
Dr. Bruno Arzena was kind and gentle to them, but he had to reveal the cruelest news to them – the burns on Ala’s legs were so deep that she would never walk normally again. And the hair on Zena’s scarred scalp won’t grow back.
Her mother Shaimaa was very sad. She left Gaza hoping for a miracle.
Zena begins to realize that she is different from her sisters. And, when she asked Shaimaa to tie her hair like other girls, her mother didn’t know what to do or say.
Caring for her daughters alone – her husband was not authorized to evacuate with them – was difficult both physically and emotionally. But Shaima doted on Zena, calling her “princess” and hiding her tears and fears about the future.
She also grieves for her mother, who died of cancer that spread unchecked and untreated in her body in the months after the war.
“The war took a huge toll on me,” she said. “Thank God we were able to leave. Miraculously we left. I hope other injured Palestinians can leave and receive medical treatment. I always pray to God to protect them and for the war to stop.
