Shadow of war looms over Gaza amputees in Qatar

Maryam Ahmed, six, is among some 300 child amputees from Gaza who are receiving therapy at the Thumama complex in Qatar, 2022 World Cup accommodation now being used to house Gaza war evacuees and their carers – Copyright Futuro Vegetal/AFP Handout

Callum Paton and Ali Choukeir

Wheeling herself around Doha’s Thumama complex for medical evacuees from Gaza, Maryam Ahmed wears a look of determination, breaking into a smile when she sees someone she knows.

The six-year-old was evacuated to Qatar from Gaza in February after her home was hit by an Israeli strike which killed her mother, father and brother, and took her right leg.      

Sitting in her new wheelchair, Maryam hitches up the skirt of her colourful, floral patterned dress to reveal what remains of her limb, amputated above the knee.  

Her missing lower leg is “in heaven”, like her family, she says. 

Maryam’s aunt Fatima Farajallah, 20, travelled with her niece to Qatar, and describes her as “psychologically better now”. 

They are among roughly 2,000 residents at the Thumama complex who are now trying to adapt to life away from the battlefields of Gaza.

Both carry the memory of the morning the home they shared was destroyed by two Israeli missiles.

Maryam was mistaken for dead in the chaotic aftermath of the strike and her body placed with those of her dead relatives.

“She did not move or make a sound. Then suddenly I heard a voice,” Farajallah said, recalling the moment her niece cried out. 

After her evacuation, Maryam spent two months in hospital in Doha, most of it at the Hamad General, and required three operations to complete the amputation of her leg. 

– Culture shock –

Adapting to life in the wealthy Gulf emirate after the horrors of war-devastated Gaza has been confusing. “At night she asks a lot” of questions, Farajallah said.

Even for Farajallah, the change has been disorientating. “Here, everything is available,” she said. “Why is Gaza not like the other countries? Why is it occupied?” she asked.

Maryam is among the lucky ones who were evacuated via Egypt for medical treatment before Israeli troops closed the Rafah border crossing from Gaza in earlier May.

By the end of June, a total of 2,000 Gaza children had had one or both legs amputated following Israeli military action, the equivalent of around 10 a day, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said at the end of June.

The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. 

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 39,623 people, mostly women and children, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. 

The head of Hamad Medical Corporation’s special education department, Mousa Mohammad, runs group therapy clinics at the Thumama complex for 190 children aged between three and six. 

He said that the sessions, which include social skills and art therapy, are an “important pillar” for rehabilitation.

Three months ago, Mohammad explained, the children could not sit still, and were prone to violent outbursts, with some “hitting the doors, hitting people, hitting the children beside them”.

Progress in the sessions has been painstaking but over time the children have become more cooperative.

“Their behaviour changed from aggressiveness, refusing the routines we are trying to build… now they want to come every day.”

– Personality change –

The Thumama complex was originally built as accommodation for visiting football fans watching the 2022 World Cup.

Now it accommodates 1,000 medical evacuees from Gaza, accompanied by carers, around 300 of them amputees.

At dusk, when the sun sets over the complex’s identikit sugar-white apartment blocks, the scorching summer heat eases and residents venture outside. 

Many are missing limbs.

Karim al-Shayyah, 10, rides his bike around the complex despite losing his left leg.

It was amputated below the knee after he was hit with shrapnel while playing in the family garden in Gaza.

“Things were good. We were having fun outside when they bombed a restaurant near us and shrapnel flew,” he said. 

His mother, Sabrine al-Shayyah, said “the injury changed Karim’s personality”. He became nervous and often locked himself in his room.

But after nearly four months of group sessions and counselling, Karim’s outlook is improving. “The interaction with children here is very positive,” his mother said.

Speaking in the apartment they now call home, Karim said that he misses his friends back in Gaza, one of whom was recently killed.

“Here we are comfortable, they take care of us and make us play,” Karim said, adding he still wants to “return to Gaza if the war stops”.