BBC News
Rami Katush's mother is a pride, as her nine -year -old son original kicks football for the first time after her injury.
This is a huge cornerstone in his restoration as he traveled to Jordan last month after receiving Israeli military approval to leave the gas.
Rami dreams of playing football one day, like Cristiano Ronaldo. But he is still in pain and quickly tired, and he has to sit on a plastic chair exhausted by the effort.
His bandaged legs – one of them, split – are bad scars and dried.
Every step forward is difficult.
Gaza doctors urged the family to agree to amputate both his feet. But his eight -year -old brother Abdul Salam had already lost his lower right leg due to his injuries, and their mother Islam asks surgeons to save Rami's limbs.
Warning – This article contains anxious content
The boys quickly fell asleep in the apartment on the third floor of the family in shops in central gas when, their mother says, Israeli air strike is aimed at the building in the neighborhood, raining for ruins and shrapnel for the children.
Rami's 12-year-old brother, Mustafa, was killed, his body blown into pieces.
His heart, pierced by shrapnel, was found only two days later, says Islam. His family gave him a separate funeral.
The UN is reported that at least 14,500 children were killed and much more injured in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which began after Hamas arms attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people.
Gaza medical evacuations are critical, wroteBecause the health system there is devastated. Only 20 of the 35 hospitals in the territory are partially functional and there is a shortage of basic medicines and equipment.
Approximately 30,000 gazan-like Rami and Abdul Salam -a left with life-changing injuries that will require years of rehabilitation, According to the World Health OrganizationS
This helped to facilitate the evacuation of hundreds of patients since February 1, when the passage of Rafa with Egypt opened again for them. But it says that between 12,000 and 14,000 people – including 4,500 children – still need to be taken for treatment.
“The war has imposed a terrifying fee for Gaza's children,” said the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) when a deal to end the fire was announced in January.
Rami underwent several surgical procedures without painkillers, anesthesia or antibiotics, his mother told the BBC. His wounds became so infected that they were crawling with larvae. Doctors did not think his legs could be saved.
“Rami was experiencing such pain, he was screaming,” God, you took my brother, now and took me! “Says Islam.
And then, in January, a rare chance emerged – for Rami and his mother to be evacuated to Jordan for treatment at a specialized hospital for reconstructive surgery, managed by Médecins Sans Frontères (MSF) in the capital of Jordan Aman.
He currently cures 13 children from gas, but has the ability to take more in dozens.
“This is the only hospital I know about providing physical and mental rehabilitation for victims of war,” says Mark Chakal, the leader of the MSF program for Jordan, Syria and Yemen. “This is a multidisciplinary care, not just surgery.”
Rami has a psychologist, surgeon and physiotherapist. He also fed, dressed and taught at the small MSF School of the Future, a bright building with a building on the grounds of the hospital. After missing out so much education, he is an avid student.
But he also disappeared to his father Mohammed and his brother Abdul Salam – who needed a prosthetic leg but failed to leave the gas with him.
They are grateful for their treatment, but he and his mother want to return home as soon as they can.
“Gaza is beautiful,” Rami told me. “We had medical treatment in the gas before the war, but then the help stopped.”
With the facilities and expertise at the MSF hospital, he is now making rapid progress.
“He arrived in a wheelchair,” says his physiotherapist Zaid Alcaii, who formed a strong relationship with Rami while helping him walk again.
“He is very motivated. He wants to return to his friends and family. He wants to make his father proud.”
He also wants to swim again in the sea in Gaza.
But there are many more operations ahead, and Rami and his mother have no idea when they will return home.
Not knowing whether they will be allowed back into gas is another huge stress for all Palestinian patients at the top of their trauma, according to psychologist Zaunn al-Sunno.
Sharing a hospital room with Rami is withdrawn and traumatized five -year -old boy Abdul Rahman Al Madhun, who also needs surgery on his feet.
He was in his mother's arms when she was killed in an air strike in October 2023, along with her brothers and sisters. At a hospital in Gaza, a nurse trying to cheer him up, told him that his mother had become a star.
“Since then, he looked up in the sky at night, looking for stars and talking to them,” says his aunt Sabah. “He doesn't talk to other people. But I hear him tell the stars,” Mom I ate, Mom, I'll sleep now. “
The psychological injuries of patients in the hospital are often more difficult than physical ones.
“Some will never recover,” says hospital director Roshan Kumarasami, who says that reconstructive surgery will be needed in gas patients for years to come due to an “unimaginably massive spectrum of injuries.”
But Rami is strong and determined. When he breaks into tears, thinking of Mustafa, he reassures me that he is “good”.
And when he and his mother manage to deal with their family in a video call gas, Rami is eager to show them how he can already stand on his own two legs.
His father cheers him, saying, “Rami, you're a hero.”
And now his family has another reason to celebrate – Rami's brother Abdul Salam and his father have just been authorized from Israel to leave the gas for Jordan.
In the coming weeks, it should be provided with a new leg, allowing the two wounded boys to enjoy how to walk.