Disabled children are killed by the Zionist Occupation of Gaza: How one Gazan mother’s tragedy has fuelled a sit-in action

 

Nelly Bassily

 

Samar Alkhdour is a Palestinian human rights defender and mom who has faced impossible decisions. Like any ambitious and driven human, she was looking to create a brighter future for herself and her family. In 2017, Samar got a Fullbright scholarship and thought the ticket to that brighter future would come via pursuing a Masters degree. If all had gone according to plan, Samar, her husband Mahmoud Elkahlout and their three children Jana, Sham and Elia would have traveled together to the US. Instead, Samar had to make the incredibly difficult decision of leaving Gaza to pursue her studies with her two youngest while her eldest disabled daughter Jana and her husband stayed behind in Gaza because her husband was denied exit by the Israeli authorities. In 2018, Samar’s husband was allowed to leave but was unable to secure the accessible transportation needed for Jana to get to the border with her dad so they again made the incredibly hard decision to leave Jana in Gaza and place her in the care of Samar’s in-laws. In 2019, after moving from the US to Quebec, Samar hoped to reunite with Jana in Canada.

“I still feel that guilt. That I left her behind in the first place. That’s another guilt that I have besides the guilt that I let her die in Gaza,” says Samar.

Jana Elkahlout was killed because of the Israeli Occupation Forces’ attacks and siege on Gaza. On January 8th 2024, just four days after she turned 13-years-old, oceans away from her mom, dad and siblings and living in impossibly inhumane circumstances, Jana’s body didn’t have what it needed to keep on fighting. 

Since arriving in Quebec, Samar had tried to apply to have Jana join them in Canada to no avail. Since October 2023, Samar lobbied every Canadian government official to have Jana evacuate – also to no avail. To add insult to injury, Samar received a letter from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that Jana was finally approved to come to Canada, but that approval came two weeks after Jana passed away.

Jana was a disabled child. At 2-months-old, Samar found out that Jana had cerebral palsy. Born under Israeli siege and being a disabled person in Gaza means that under ‘normal, non-war’ circumstances, there is no proper access to the health and care support needed. For Jana and other disabled Palestinians in Gaza living the nightmare of a genocide, the difficulties fleeing attacks and accessing desperately needed necessities and humanitarian aid are even greater than for non-disabled persons. 

Samar recounts: “For me, I have my family back in Gaza and I have my in-laws who were taking care of Jana. Given her condition, cerebral palsy, she could barely walk or talk or see, but she could hear really well.” 

When the bombardments and attacks intensified in October 2023, Samar could never have imagined what was to happen next. In order to secure relative ‘safety’ for Jana, Samar decided she would move Jana and the in-laws that cared for her to a nearby church in northern Gaza. Samar thought that churches were safer and that the Israeli Occupation wouldn’t attack the churches. But that assumption turned out to be erroneous. The church was bombed and besieged. Accessing the necessary specialized food Jana needed became impossible. Jana died due to a lack of medicine and appropriate food for her condition. It’s important to emphasize that it is not normal nor acceptable for life-giving medications and food to become unattainable luxuries.

Cerebral palsy affects the musculoskeletal system. It can affect any muscles in the body. For Jana, cerebral palsy affected the muscles that control chewing and swallowing. Jana struggled to eat independently, which meant that she could only eat “soft foods” that became impossible to acquire under bombardment and besiegement, leading to malnutrition.

Knowing that her daughter was in imminent danger, Samar’s anxiety swelled. Communicating with Jana through social media was not an option because of her disability. “The feeling of helplessness and guilt is a big burden to carry in the heart and the mind, until this moment,” says Samar.

Long before the genocide, being unable to properly directly communicate with Jana was a huge burden to carry.  “She can’t see me. I can’t touch her. I can’t help her. I know that she needed more than just hearing my voice or me seeing her photos. So, all these moments, we were deprived of them. She was deprived of my presence for 7 years and for me it was really hard.”

Jana is unfortunately not the only disabled child in Gaza that was killed due to malnutrition and lack of access to needed medicines because of Israel’s criminal blocking of humanitarian aid in Gaza.   

Yazan al-Kafarna, a nine-year-old boy born with cerebral palsy, was also among Gaza’s killed disabled children. Yazan’s case shocked the world when videos and images of his skeletal limbs and sunken eyes started to circulate on social media. Ashraf al-Kafarna, Yazan’s dad said that his son “slowly wasted away after the fresh fruit and other food he needed for his diet disappeared from Gaza, and there weren’t any substitutes available.” 

Yet another disabled child from Gaza that was killed by the Israeli Occupation is Hussam Abu Shamaleh, a 10-year-old boy who lived with brain atrophy and complete paralysis. Displaced many times over because of the bombardments, Hussam’s father, Ahmed Abu Shamaleh, was desperately searching for medicine and food for his child to no avail. Hussam went from weighing 15 kilos to 8 kilos, to taking his final breath in his pregnant mother’s arms at the doorstep of a depleted hospital that could do nothing for him. For weeks, Hussam’s father endlessly searched for spasticity medicine and the very specific Silk formula needed for his son’s diet but it was either unavailable or only available in small quantities for exorbitant prices. 

Those are some of the cases of disabled Palestinian children in Gaza that we know about because their parents were able to share their stories with the world via social media. There are thousands more we will never know about.

While according to official statistics, approximately 2.4 percent of the population in Gaza are disabled people and disabled children make up one-fifth of that population, it also has been argued that the genocide, which is a mass disabling event, has effectively rendered every Palestinian in Gaza disabled in some way.  

A UN Commission of Inquiry report published in March 2019 documented that Israeli forces routinely fire on people with disabilities, among other identifiable groups, “knowing who they are,” even though protesters did not pose an imminent threat. During the Great March of Return of 2018-2019, Medecin Sans Frontières (MSF) reported that “Israeli soldiers fired bullets at protestors on the assumption that anyone – including people under the age of 18 – approaching the fence was a legitimate target.”

According to Human Rights Watch “Since 2007, Israeli authorities have imposed a generalized travel ban that deprives the two million Palestinians in Gaza of their freedom to leave the 365-square-kilometer strip, outside of narrow exceptions. Israeli authorities have also sharply restricted the entry and exit of goods from Gaza. Israel’s closure of Gaza, exacerbated by Egyptian restrictions on its border with Gaza, limits access to health care, clean water, and electricity, as well as educational, economic, and other opportunities.”

Compounded to all this is the ongoing psychotrauma of successive wars on Gaza since 2008 and the ongoing Nakba and genocide. The 76th anniversary of the beginning of the Nakba of 1948 was commemorated on May 15th 2024. Writers Against the War on Gaza wrote : “The Nakba never ended. Illegal settlements, massacres, incarceration, starvation, blockades, military surveillance, and the destruction of infrastructure constitute the everyday life of Palestinians: a daily Nakba. “Israel” goads, it taunts, it mass murders, and yet it still insists on its innocence, skewing morality to impose its settler fantasy. But this false image will not endure. 

The Zionist entity began with the Nakba, and the continuation of the Nakba will bring about its end. The seeds of its own demise—a steadfast and growing resistance—have been planted by its violent escalations. The current war on Gaza, a mirror of the initial catastrophe of 1948, portends Zionism in its death spiral.”

To say that the Gaza genocide is aimed at children and the most vulnerable in Gaza is an understatement. According to a recent statement by Gaza’s Health Ministry, “More than 20,000 patients suffering of cancer, heart and blood diseases are waiting for the opening of the crossing in inhumane conditions due to the occupation, siege and war of extermination imposed on civilians in Gaza,” says ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra. He noted that this is “a war crime and a blatant violation of the health rights of patients stipulated in international humanitarian law.”

For children especially, the loss of familiar settings and the death of loved ones combined with the complete collapse of daily routine causes mental health issues that have long-term effects on their development and future. For those with already heightened sensitivities, the effects can be far more acute. And Jana was tragically one of this 239-day-old genocide’s disabled victims. 

For Samar, grieving Jana’s death has not even been possible. Fueled by anger and despair, Samar has been leading, with the support of community members, a sit-in from Monday to Friday for the past 45-days in front of Canadian Minister of Immigration Marc Miller’s riding office in Montreal, Quebec. Samar wants the Canadian Immigration Minister to implement immediate changes such as simplifying the Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) Program and officially removing the TRV program’s 1000-person cap imposed for Palestinians leaving Gaza. On May 27th, Minister of Immigration Marc Miller issued a statement saying that the government “increased the number of temporary resident visa applications that will be accepted into processing […] from 1,000 to 5,000”. For Samar, this measure is only political lip service and doesn’t get at the core of the injustice and racism of this programme. She’s also urgently calling for an immediate ceasefire to prevent more Gazan’s from dying. Unfortunately, the Israeli Occupation has been continuing its brutal offensive on Gaza despite the UN Security Council passing a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire. 

On Friday May 24th, while Samar and supporters were at the sit-in, they were informed by Montreal police that Marc Miller had moved his Montreal riding office without any details about the new office location — an unusual move for an elected member of parliament as they are required to be accessible and accountable to their riding constituents. Samar believes the pressure of the sit-in is working and says the sit-in will move to wherever the new office is, until all demands are met.

Fearing for loved ones that remained in Gaza, Samar fundraised to help her sister and other family members to evacuate to Egypt. Her family narrowly made it out as Gazans who could not flee are now effectively trapped in Gaza. Since May 6th 2024, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)  have invaded the city of Rafah, and the border between Gaza and Egypt is, at the time of publication, effectively shut to all — no one can exit Gaza and no food, water or medical supplies have been allowed to enter through the Rafah crossing. On May 26th, yet another horrifying massacre in Rafah, where the IOF murdered at least 35 Palestinians (with a death toll likely to rise), injuring  more, causing amputations & severe burns with no functioning hospitals to treat the severity of these injuries. This massacre in Rafah came after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its invasion of Rafah. Still, the IOF targeted tents where displaced people were sheltering in designated ‘safe areas’ of northwest Rafah when seven 1,000 kg bombs engulfed the area in flames, burning people alive. These are Palestinians who were already displaced, under siege and deprived of water, food, medicine and electricity. To say that this is a calamity of unprecedented proportions is not an exaggeration. 

While Samar will never be able to hold Jana in her arms again and was robbed of even being able to properly burry her beloved daughter, she is hopeful that the sit-in in front of Marc Miller’s office will save the lives of Palestinians with families in Canada desperate to flee this genocide. A hope she articulated in a poem titled, If I Must Live (as a response to the poem If I must Die by murdered Palestinian academic, Refaat Alareer) 

 

If I must live,

everyone must live

to write our story, 

to keep our things, 

to weave a piece 

of tasseled cloth, 

black and white, 

so a child in heaven, 

looking down on Gaza, 

waiting for his homeless, 

helpless, hopeless family, 

bids no one farewell, 

not even his guardian angels.

He will see 

our Palestinian kuffiyeh, 

the kuffiyeh that we weaved, 

flying above the rubble.

In that moment he will see 

that God is there, 

bringing justice.

If I must live, 

let it bring light.

Let it be glorious.

 

ABOUT

 

Nelly Bassily is a queer disability justice advocate and intersectional feminist, anti-racism, and sexual rights activist and media maker with more than 15 years of experience in the non-profit sector. Born in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal to Egyptian parents with Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian roots; immigration, diaspora, and decoloniality also inform her activism. 

 

Support Disability Media and Culture

DONATE to the Disability Visibility Project®