KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Three-year-old Amr al-Hams lies motionless in a hospital bed in southern Gaza, shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike lodged in his brain. He cannot walk or speak. His aunt, Nour, believes his darting eyes are searching for his mother.
Amr’s mother, Inas, was nine months pregnant when she took the family to visit her parents in northern Gaza. That night, a strike hit their tent. Amr’s mother, his unborn sibling, two other siblings, and his grandfather were all killed.
But Amr survived. He was rushed to intensive care with a breathing tube in his throat. His father, overwhelmed with grief, could barely speak.
Now at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Amr is out of ICU but severely malnourished. The fortified milk he needs disappeared during Israel’s monthslong blockade. Nour, a trained nurse, feeds him mashed lentils through a syringe. She shares his hospital bed, changes his diapers and tries to ease his pain during seizures.
“I tell him his mother will be back soon,” she says. “Other times I give him a toy. But he cries. I think he misses her.”
Doctors say Amr urgently needs to be evacuated from the war-torn territory. Without advanced care and therapy, his brain injuries will likely cause permanent damage.
“His brain is still developing,” Nour says. “Will he walk again? Speak again? So long as he is in Gaza, there’s no recovery.”
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