Adam…the first wounded child from Gaza to arrive in Lebanon for treatment

Adam Afana, 12, had a dream of becoming a policeman “to keep people safe,” his uncle Eid says, before he lost his father, brothers, cousins ​​, and almost all of his left arm in an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip seven months ago.

Now, Adam has become the first Palestinian child injured in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to reach Lebanon, where he has been receiving treatment since Monday at the American University of Beirut Medical Center with the help of the Ghassan Abu Sitta Children’s Fund.

Adam plays with superhero action figures in a sunlit hospital room and watches videos on an iPad. He laughs and jokes with his uncle and the nursing staff but gives only curt answers when asked about his journey to safety in Beirut.

Bringing Adam to Lebanon was not an easy task. He spent more than six weeks in Gaza after his injury, between trying to take shelter from the bombing and undergoing emergency surgery on his arm without anesthesia. In early December, his uncle could enter Gaza City for only two days, coming from Egypt to get Adam and his mother out through the Rafah crossing.

But they were lucky: an Israeli attack on Rafah this month closed the main crossing to Egypt, cutting off aid and preventing the small number of people who had been leaving the Strip to get medical help. The family spent about six months in Egypt, but Adam’s arm needed specialized care. And so began attempts to transfer him to Lebanon, a country with an unstable sectarian balance, a complicated history with Palestinian refugees, and strict restrictions on their entry.

AUB President Fadlo Khuri told reporters earlier this week that the university had held extensive discussions with Lebanese authorities to allow Adam in amid hopes that the child would be the first of more Palestinian children to benefit from the hospital’s expertise in treating war injuries.

Dania Dandashli of the Ghassan Abu Sitta Children’s Fund told Reuters that the organization hopes to treat a total of 50 Palestinian children wounded in the war in Lebanon over the next year. The Ministry of Health in Gaza says that the Israeli military operation, by land and air, has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, and injured more than 81,000.

The war broke out in the Gaza Strip after an attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and holding more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.