Initially, health workers thought that Majid Al Shagnobi had been killed.
Like many children in northern Gaza, they waited to collect flour. In February 2024, an Israeli rap shotgun ripped his face a Kuwait roundabout, causing explosive injuries to his chin and mouth below.
“Someone dragged me down and took me safely,” the 15-year-old told CNN on Monday. “I thought I was dead, so I was put in the fridge at the morgue. But I moved my hands and warned me of the fact that I was alive.”
A Palestinian doctor made him cry before sewing the wounds in the kitchen because there were not enough operating rooms at Al Ali Baptist Hospital in Gaza. Eventually, Majid trekked alone through a destroyed neighborhood and military checkpoint before reuniting with his mother in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
“It was difficult,” recalled Majd. “I was very scared because the Israelites were there.”
In July he became Gaza’s third child and entered the UK with a private medical evacuation promoted by the pure hopes of an NGO project, receiving support from the non-profit Gazakinder Relief. Five months ago, Majd had left Egypt with his mother, Islam Ferfel, his younger brother Nader and seven-year-old Rahaf (7). The British government did not fund his evacuation or treatment.
On Tuesday, MAMD underwent facial reconstruction surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London days after the UK government announced a new scheme to promote the safe arrival of severely ill children around the country.
But relief and healthcare workers say that is not enough – warning that Majid’s ordeal offers rare insights into the horrors of Israel for children in Gaza. More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured, according to the UN Children’s Agency. Gaza is home to the most per capita child amputees around the world. Director General Philip Lazarini, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, said Wednesday.
The nearly two years of bombing and border restrictions following the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, have contained the health system and reduced access to patient care. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on September 10, more than 700 people died waiting for medical evacuation from Gaza, and waiting for medical evacuation from Gaza, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said.
As more Western countries now move to recognize Palestinian states and international condemnation of Israeli attacks increases, rights defenders are calling for allies to withdraw military support from Israel and address crippling humanitarian sieges, including medical evacuation from Gaza.
Between October and July 2023, 7,642 patients, including 5,303 children, were evacuated from the enclave, according to the Borderless Medical NGO Doctor (MSF). The UK received only 0.03% of these patients, MSF said.
“There’s no shortage of the challenges we see in Gaza. Many kids have lost their limbs and are losing their ability to eat,” Omar Din, co-founder of Project Pure Hope, told CNN on Monday.
“With all the wills of the world, we should do more,” DIN said. “There’s a perception that these are people who are treated like any other person and have the right not to challenge themselves to receive health care.”
After more than 700 days of war in Gaza, parents, doctors and UN agencies say Palestinian children are facing worsening hunger, fear, bloodshed and severe artillery fire. According to MSF, some people “want to die to join their parents in heaven.”
According to Dr. Owase Jeelani, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Majd has undergone specialist grafts and reconstructive surgery that better uses the mouth, but his care represents a “sea drop” compared to the scale of the need.
“Hopefully, if we can give him the results we want, this will pave the way for more kids to come,” Jeelani told CNN.
Israel has targeted 38 hospitals in Gaza since October 7, 2023. At least 1,723 health workers have been killed, he said Tuesday. For years, Israel has claimed Hamas fighters have been evacuating to hospitals and other civilian locations to avoid Israeli attacks. Hamas repeatedly refused the allegations.
Last week, an independent UN investigation concluded that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza through a multifaceted campaign, including targeting children and healthcare systems. Israel has firmly denied the genocide accusations.
Gaza hospitals represent “the very life facing siege and war.”
“Destroying these beacons of hope is intended first and foremost to break the will of society, drive people into despair and deprive them of their ability to endure,” he added.
Footage taken by the CNN team at Great Ormond Street Hospital prior to the surgery shows Majd lying in a small ward wearing cream pajamas with the video game “Minecraft” logo. His brown eyes peer from one side of the room to the other, from behind a blue surgical mask.
“My wish is that Gaza once was, that everyone would return to get back together,” he told CNN. “I want to be like all the other kids.”
The tweets from London’s medical machinery are far from the smashing of Israeli drones in northern Gaza. There, his two younger brothers, Muhammad, 14, Yusuf (12), are evacuated.
“I wouldn’t have left them behind if I had known that the war would resume,” their mother, Verpel, told CNN on Monday. You took the boy you loved, left us, and we could die anytime. ”
The current Israeli military attack in Gaza city — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is targeting what he calls Hamas’ “remaining base” — did not serve three hospitals, Dr. Al Bahsh said on X on Tuesday. CNN contacted the Israeli Defense Forces for comment. According to the United Nations, they have been forced to move south from Gaza’s largest city since mid-August.
But Verpel told CNN that his two sons with his father could not afford a $3,000 fee to move from north to south. “Their homes are gone, their safe places are gone. They’re now on the street,” she said. “Being away from them will tear my heart.”
