12-year-old Waheed Al Ghalban didn’t expect to be met with flowers and posters when he arrived at the Detroit airport in April. His mother, Howaida, stood beside his wheelchair as the crowd of people waved Palestinian flags and began to chant “welcome” in Arabic.
Waheed lost an eye, an arm, and a leg to an Israeli bomb last year.
He flew to Michigan along with three other child amputees that the nonprofit organization HEAL Palestine helped evacuate from Gaza in order to receive medical care and prosthetic limbs in the United States.
At least 3,100 people in the territory lost limbs after Israel began military action in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on its soil on October 7, 2023, according to a report published last June by the World Health Organization. At the time, there were no operational prosthetic services in Gaza.
At the start of this year a UN agency said there were more child amputees per capita in Gaza than anywhere else in the world.
Waheed said he didn’t think he would walk again. “In the time that I spent between the injury and coming here,” he said through a translator, “I didn't expect to get back to normal.”
Howaida wanted to spare her son the trauma of talking about the incident that caused him to lose his limbs and one of his eyes, though she became more emotional than him when asked about it. He had been walking near his home last May when a bomb exploded nearby and knocked him unconscious, she explained.
Waheed was in a coma for two weeks. He was devastated when he regained consciousness and medical personnel at the hospital told him about his injuries.
"When they told him everything, he battled a bout of depression,” Howaida said. “He went through a lot mentally.”
Lifted spirits
There is no treatment that would allow Waheed to regain sight in the eye and he hasn’t gotten a prosthetic arm yet. But having a prosthetic leg has lifted his spirits immensely, said Feroza Raffee, who, along with her husband, has been hosting Waheed and Howaida at their home in Flint.
“He was walking and he was screaming out of joy,” said Raffee, recalling the moment when he took his first steps on his prosthetic leg.
When HEAL Palestine reached out to her about hosting a child amputee from Gaza, she readily agreed. The Raffees didn’t have a personal connection to Gaza and they don’t speak Arabic, but they had a strong desire to do something to help people who have faced more than a year and a half of war.
Still, opening your home to strangers can be daunting, especially when there’s a language barrier to overcome. Seeing how thrilled Waheed was after he was fitted with a prosthetic affirmed to Raffee that she had made the right decision.
“That to me was all worth it,” she said. “To see that [joy] in his face and to be able to see him moving and not having to be in a wheelchair.”
Howaida is grateful for what HEAL Palestine has been able to do for her young son. Waheed has been able to go to the bathroom on his own again, and is back to getting dressed without assistance.
But the experience has been bittersweet.
Howaida has eight other children. Two of them are in Europe. She constantly worries about the six others who are still back home in Gaza.
“The situation was very difficult. I don't want to talk about it anymore. There’s no food, nothing to drink –” Howaida’s voice trails off and her eyes fill with tears.
Israel blocked entry of humanitarian aid and medical provisions to Gaza for nearly three months. While aid delivery has since resumed, the amount now entering the territory falls short of meeting the immense need. Human rights organizations criticized a new delivery program for depriving starving people of desperately needed provisions.
Israel has defended its new aid distribution program as necessary to prevent Hamas from diverting food from civilians in Gaza. It’s said that its blockade was lawful and, along with its continued military action, part of an effort to get Hamas to release Israeli hostages.
Israel has also resumed heavy bombardment of the territory, including in the area of Gaza where Howaida’s children live.
“I just can't imagine it,” said Raffee, wiping tears from her eyes. “As a mom, just to know that your children are on the other side and you don't have their food or medical care and they just have to keep running. That's hard to see on a daily basis.”
Fortunate Few
For two months earlier this year, a fragile ceasefire meant a pause in the daily bombardments in Gaza and allowed HEAL Palestine to evacuate people who needed medical care that can’t be provided in the territory.
“We were fortunate to get these kids out during the ceasefire,” said Steve Sosebee, who co-founded the organization to provide humanitarian aid and medical care during this most recent war on Gaza.
But it didn’t last. Sosebee says his organization hasn’t been able to coordinate any medical evacuations from Gaza since Israel broke the agreement in March.
Israel has said it’s acting in self defense after raids launched primarily from Gaza killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in 2023. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that there is “no way” Israel will stop its military campaign even if more of the 58 hostages it believes are still in captivity are released. He said completing its mission “means destroying Hamas.”
The Israeli military says it deploys multiple strategies to “minimize civilian casualties.”
United Nations investigators have found Israel’s conduct in the war – including mass civilian casualties and starvation as a weapon of war – is “consistent with genocide.”
The Gaza strip is 141 square miles – almost exactly the same size as Detroit – but is home to more than three times as many people. Aerial assaults on the area have far exceeded recent conflicts, taking a heavy toll on civilians. More than 55,000 people have been killed, according to the Gazan health ministry.
“Tens of thousands of children have suffered significant injuries in Gaza that require medical care that is not available there because the health system's been destroyed,” said Sosebee, who has been facilitating medical evacuations of children from Palestine for decades.
He said that HEAL Palestine has brought 45 children to the U.S. to be fitted with prosthetics in the last year.
Even with so many injuries, Howaida knows her son is among the lucky ones for being able to get a prosthetic leg and other necessary medical care. She hopes other families don’t have to go through what they’ve experienced.
“There are a lot of children who are losing their lives, who are permanently injured,” Howaida said. “I just want the killing and the injuries to the children to stop.”
This time in Michigan has given the mother and son a respite from the dire situation in Gaza. Although Waheed's body will never be the same, his quick smirk and lighthearted banter show he is still the cheerful child he was before he lost his limbs.
Howaida seemed to remember this as she watched him dribble and kick a soccer ball like he used to do back home.
The two will go to Egypt after Waheed completes his treatment. HEAL Palestine will continue supporting them while they’re there.
They don’t know when they’ll see the rest of their family again but they plan to go back home to Gaza no matter what happens, and to restart their lives there.
“I hope to be able to play soccer, go for walks, go to school, go to the mosque, just be normal,” Waheed said. “And in the future, as a job, I want to be a soccer player.”
