The bombs fell at night, when everyone was sleeping.
Hanin al-Mabhuh was barely conscious when she was pulled from the rubble. The weight of the house had crushed her bones. It was not until several weeks and several surgeries later that she learned that all four daughters had been killed.
The youngest, not even six months old, must have been torn from her mother's arms by the shock wave. They didn't have time for any milestones, al-Mabhuh told the AP: no first tooth, no first steps, no first "mom."
For a year and a half I haven't been able to move or live like others. For a year and a half I've been childless.
One of her legs had to be amputated above the knee and the other is held together by metal rods. The 34-year-old needs a leg transplant, a procedure that cannot be performed in Gaza, but despite being on the waiting list for medical evacuation for almost a year, she has not yet been allowed to travel. In Gaza, where the healthcare system is in ruins after more than two years of war, prostheses, crutches and wheelchairs are in short supply.
18,000 on waiting list
Hanin al-Mabhuh dreams of cradling a new baby in her arms. She has been given a wheelchair, but needs help getting dressed and can't hold a pencil. Life is on hold.
"It's my right to live, to have another child, to regain what I lost. To walk – just to be able to walk again," she tells AP.
Up to 6,000 Gazans – a quarter of them children – have been forced to have one or more body parts amputated during the war, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Even more are waiting to leave the Gaza Strip for treatment – according to Doctors Without Borders, at least 18,500.
Since the ceasefire came into effect in October, only a few hundred have been allowed to leave the area, according to the UN agency Ocha .
“Now I am sitting here”
Time stands still for Yassin Maruf, too. He has been on the waiting list since May, when his brother was killed and he himself was seriously injured in Israeli shelling. The 23-year-old lay bleeding on the ground when a stray dog attacked his already mangled leg.
Now one leg has been amputated. If he is not allowed to leave Gaza for treatment, the other one will also have to be removed, the doctors say.
"I need two or three people to carry me just to go to the bathroom," he tells AP.
Ibrahim Khalif has been waiting for a prosthetic leg since January, when he lost one of his legs in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City. Since then, he has been unable to support his children and pregnant wife, writes the AP.
I used to be the breadwinner for my family, but now I sit here. I think about who I was and what I've become.
The war in Gaza broke out after Palestinian extremists, mainly belonging to the terrorist group Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Around 1,200 people were killed, just over 800 of them civilians, and around 250 were taken hostage.
Israel's subsequent bombings have killed over 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled territory's Health Ministry, whose figures are cited by UN agencies and international organizations.
A ceasefire brokered by the US, among others, was signed in October, but despite this, Israel has continued to repeatedly bomb Gaza, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
A legal process has been underway at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague since December 2023 in which South Africa accuses Israel of genocide.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued international arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country's former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and now-dead Hamas leaders. The charges include war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Source: ICJ, AP, UN
