"Her injuries are forever, for the rest of her life"

"Her injuries are forever, for the rest of her life"
Report, The Electronic Intifada, Aug 10, 2007
On a Saturday morning in mid May 2006, Hamdi Aman, aged 30 from Gaza, had his world turned upside down. Four members of his family died in an Israeli air strike aimed at an Islamic Jihad activist in Gaza.

He is concerned that his daughter, Maria, set to celebrate her sixth birthday next week, will be forced to leave the Israeli hospital where she is being treated for serious injuries sustained in the attack. The authorities want her to go to Ramallah, in the West Bank, but medical workers and Hamdi are worried this will harm Maria.

"It was a Saturday morning. There were eight of us in the vehicle going to visit a relative in hospital. We didn't know about the Israeli plane overhead looking for Ahmed Dahduh [from the Islamic Jihad].

"We were talking and then suddenly something hit us. I didn't know at first what it was.

"My mother, Hannan, died. My wife, Naima, and my eldest son, Muhanned, died. My youngest son Mo'men, who just turned four last week, got shrapnel wounds and so did I. My uncle died a month and 10 days later from his wounds.

"My daughter Maria was thrown out of the window. She became paralyzed from the neck down from the injuries to her brain and spinal cord.

"She can only breathe through a ventilator hooked up to her wheelchair. She controls the chair with her chin.

"Her injuries are forever, for the rest of her life.

"Mo'men was injured again a few months later, while Maria was in hospital, in another Israeli airstrike in Gaza. They were trying to kill another militant. The hospital psychologist had to tell me about it. Mo'men is now here with me in Jerusalem.

"We had to fight for Maria to get treatment in Israel. Lawyers and activists helped as did some people from the Israeli media. The Palestinian hospitals in Gaza could not treat her. Even the Israeli doctors call her a 'unique case.'

"On Thursday [2 August] last week I got a letter from the Israeli ministry [of defense] saying they would transfer her [Maria] to Ramallah. But they can't treat her there. Children in better condition than Maria come from Ramallah to Israel for treatment.

"What if she has to cross through a checkpoint? If anything happened to her ventilator, no one would be able to help her, she would die within minutes. She has had problems with it several times already. She can't be left alone for a minute.

"I have no words to describe my responsibilities. I have to take care of everything for her, she can't do anything on her own. But she is a growing girl, and I am a man and she has lost her mother. It will get harder.

"At first, I couldn't get a permit to stay in Israel. But I had to be by her side. So I slept on a mattress near her hospital bed, illegally, for seven months, until they gave me a permit.

"She gets excellent treatment here. I don't want her to go anywhere else, where she won't get the treatment she needs. It's only from God, a miracle that she's alive. She could die if she is sent to a place that cannot treat her as she requires.

"I want her to stay in Jerusalem. The bilingual [Hebrew-Arabic] school has accepted her for next year.

"She's paralyzed. All she has left is her mind. She needs to study. You should see her use the computer in the hospital, she moves the mouse with her chin. She loves it and she is good at it.

"I want Israel to take responsibility for her, give her the care she needs. I never asked them for anything, not for my dead wife, my mother, my eldest son. But please, just treat Maria. Give her the best treatment."

--------------------

Border Control / A fatal hospital discharge
Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, August 7, 2007
Four months ago the Civil Administration's Health Coordinator, Dalia Bassa, told Hamdi Aman that within a few days he would have to remove his daughter from the only hospital in the Middle East that specializes in artificial respiration for children.

The media's intervention won Mariya a reprieve, but only temporarily.

The little girl trapped by a quirk of war
Uzi Mahnaimi, The Sunday Times, February 25, 2007
FOR five-year-old Marya Aman and her father Hamdi, the respiratory ward of Alyn hospital in Jerusalem has become a prison and her terrible injuries a life sentence.

Paralysed from the neck down when an Israeli missile destroyed her family’s car in Gaza last May, the Palestinian girl is caught in a dilemma that only the tortured politics of the Middle East could have contrived.

She cannot leave the Israeli hospital where her father tends her round the clock — feeding her, bathing her and changing her catheters — because she has nowhere to go within reach of the medical care she needs.

Her 29-year-old father cannot leave without risking automatic deportation to Gaza and separation from his child.

Mariya of the sorrows
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, June 16, 2006

Collateral Damage: An Entire Gaza Family
Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz, May 31 2006