By Jomaa Younis and Ikram Kouachi
ISTANBUL (AA) - On a swing in the courtyard of Dar Al-Arqam School, six-year-old Ghada Dabbash tried to find a moment of normalcy amid the war around her. She laughed and swung lightly, unaware the moment would end in tragedy.
An Israeli shell abruptly struck the area, severing her right hand — the hand she used to write, eat, hold her sister’s hand, and wave to her mother each morning.
Ghada, displaced from Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood, was among dozens of children living in the school, which had been converted into a shelter for displaced families.
During the genocidal attack by Israel on the school in early April, 31 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 injured, many of them children like Ghada.
The Israeli army claimed it had targeted a "Hamas command center" inside the school, but Gaza’s Government Media Office rejected the claim, saying the strike targeted displaced civilians.
On Friday, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that women and children topped the list of casualties since Israel resumed its war on Gaza on March 18, killing 595 children and 308 women during that period.
- Long silence
Today, Ghada sits in a corner of another school where she was displaced again. She speaks little but her eyes tell volumes. She smiles faintly when asked questions but quickly drifts into long silence.
Her father, Ahmed Dabbash, recalled: "She was playing on the swing, laughing... Suddenly an Israeli missile fell. A piece of shrapnel hit her hand directly. The injury was extremely severe. I personally bandaged her to stop the bleeding and rushed her to the hospital. I knew immediately her hand might not be saved."
He added: "She was taken to surgery... The doctor tried, but returned to tell us that amputation was inevitable."
Fighting back tears, he continued: "I signed the consent form with a shattered heart. Ghada used her right hand for everything: Eating, writing. Now we are trying to help her adapt to using her left hand, but she struggles."
In a faint voice and with a pale face, Ghada said: "I'm Ghada Dabbash ... I'm six years old... The Israelis cut off my hand. I wish I could have a new one."
- Hope for prosthetic limb
Her elder sister Malak, 8, joined the conversation, her voice filled with heartbreak: "I was carrying my little brother when the explosion happened. The place filled with smoke. I just wanted the smoke to clear so I could find my mother."
She added: "I wish Ghada could get an artificial hand so she can write and play like us... I just want to see her laugh from the heart again."
Malak ended with a whisper, kissing Ghada’s amputated arm: "The best gift for my sister would be a prosthetic hand... so she can get her old life back."
On March 24, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that about 15,613 children had been killed over the 19 months of Israel’s genocidal war, making up 31% of the total death toll at the time. Injuries among children reached 33,900, constituting 30% of the total wounded.
The ministry also stated that Israel had killed 825 infants under the age of one during that period.
While updated figures for child and female casualties since March 18 were not disclosed, the ministry confirmed that by midday Friday, Israel’s resumed genocidal war had killed 2,062 Palestinians and injured 5,375 others, mostly women and children.
More than 51,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.