Born during Israel’s genocide: Gaza’s child survivors bear the scars of war
Two-year-old Mohammed Abu Hajeela wears a facial pressure mask after sustaining severe third-degree burns in an Israeli strike on a school shelter in Gaza City in July 2025
Israa Tariq Al-Ramli and Mohammad Mansour report in Al Jazeera on 28 April 2026:
Nour Abu Samaan was born on October 7, 2023, just three hours before the start of what would become a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Her arrival was met with joy by her mother, Samar Hammad, but that happiness lasted only a day.
On October 8, as Nour rested in her mother’s arms, Israeli missiles struck nearby. The air thick with smoke and toxic gases, the newborn began to struggle for breath.“My daughter suddenly choked in my hands,” Samar told Al Jazeera Arabic. “Her colour turned blue, her eyes rolled back, and she lost all movement”.
Doctors later diagnosed Nour with movement paralysis caused by the inhalation of toxic gases. At just two days old, Nour’s life shifted from a nursery to a hospital bed, beginning a heavy journey of pain.
A miraculous escape
Samar spent a month at al-Nasr Children’s Hospital in north Gaza, watching over her daughter in the intensive care unit (ICU) as the war closed in. North Gaza bore the brunt of Israel’s bombardment in the initial days of the war. Soon, the region was placed under a siege by the Israeli military, and people were forced to flee.
As the siege intensified, Samar managed to evacuate Nour just before the hospital was bombed. She did not know then that her daughter would be the sole survivor of the deadly attack on al-Nasr Hospital, including the ICU. After Israeli forces stormed the medical facility, they disconnected life-support systems from the premature babies left behind; their decomposed bodies were discovered on their beds days later.
Nour’s father, Othman Abu Samaan, 42, watches his daughter with a heartbreak that time has not healed. The injury left Nour with severe stiffness in her limbs, a condition doctors describe as more debilitating than partial paralysis. “We have tried repeatedly to make her sit, but she cannot,” Othman said.
As the family struggles, official data from Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirms a surge in such cases. Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s Information Unit, reported that 1,200 children in Gaza now suffer from spinal cord injuries and paralysis directly resulting from Israeli attacks.