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On a warm afternoon in Houston, Texas, a group of young girls are hanging out by a swimming pool. Arabic pop songs blast through smartphone speakers as the girls take selfies, their laughter and chatter ringing out.
The children’s parents caution that the water is too cold to swim in. But one girl, her lower face wrapped in a huge white bandage, ignores the warnings – jumping into the pool and soaking everyone else in the process.
“Mazyouna has always been a fiery spirit,” says her mother, Areej Damoo, sitting on a striped sun lounger with her younger daughter Tala in her lap. “After everything she has been through, I’m just glad to see her returning to her old self.”
Last June, Mazyouna was at home when her apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza was hit by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rocket. The blast threw Mazyouna and her mother out on to the street. Her little sister Tala was buried under the rubble but found alive.
The bodies of her siblings, Hala, 13, and Mohannad, 10, were pulled out of the wreckage in the hours after the attack.
Mazyouna survived, but half of her face had been ripped off in the explosion; part of her cheek was missing, leaving her jawbone exposed. Medics at the hospital did what they could, but Gaza’s crippled healthcare system was unable to provide her with the specialist care she required.
For five months, as Mazyouna’s wounds became infected and she suffered constant pain from the shrapnel still lodged in her face, her parents repeatedly tried to get permission from Cogat, the Israeli government body for humanitarian affairs, for her to be medically evacuated to the US, where a team of surgeons was waiting to treat her.
Finally, in November, after the Guardian reported on Mazyouna’s case, she, her mother and sister were allowed to leave Gaza and travelled with three other critically injured children to the other side of the world, arriving in Texas. Mazyouna’s father, Ahmed Damoo, was not granted permission to travel to the US.
The girls know little of the English language or American culture – and even less of what the future holds for them. Having left everything they had known behind, they quickly forged a tight bond and together have experienced many firsts: travelling by plane, seeing snow and watching their first rodeo.
“Having each other to fall back on has really helped them with this transition,” says Dr Mosab Nasser, CEO of FAJR Scientific, the medical NGO that evacuated the girls from Gaza and is now facilitating their surgical care and rehabilitation in the US.
The girls must not only try to recover from their physical injuries but learn to navigate new lives – all while grappling with the daily reality of their new and permanent disabilities.
The specialist treatment they require means they will be separated and scattered to different states across the country. They are gathering today because Mazyouna, 13, and her mother and sister are going to El Paso, where Mazyouna’s facial surgery will take place and where what is left of her family will settle for the foreseeable future.
The evacuees make up only a tiny fraction of the thousands of civilians who have suffered devastating injuries during Israel’s 15-month war in Gaza. Last month, the World Health Organization urged a rapid scaling-up of medical evacuations from Gaza where thousands remain in critical condition and an estimated 5,000 children require urgent removal for treatment abroad.
Twelve-year-old Mayar sits quietly in her wheelchair by the edge of the pool and watches the other girls splash around. “I used to love swimming,” she says. “We used to go to the beach all the time in Gaza but those days are nothing but memories now. The war destroyed everything.”
Mayar also received devastating injuries from a rocket attack on her home last summer and waited for months alongside Mazyouna in the al-Aqsa hospital to be granted permission for her medical evacuation. Her mother, Maha, was not allowed to leave with her.
Being separated from her family has taken its toll on Mayar’s mental health. Her elderly grandmother was the only family member authorised by Cogat to accompany her and she struggles to offer help or solace to her grieving granddaughter. “If my legs worked properly, I would walk back to Gaza tomorrow,” says Mayar.
Standing next to her, Salam Younis, a curly haired eight-year-old, cautiously dips her toes into the water. To the casual observer, Salam looks perfectly healthy, but beneath her lilac daisy-dotted dress, her body is covered with fourth-degree burns.
After their house in Nuseirat was bombed, Salam, her mother, Eslam, and sister Elia, four, suffered severe burns all over their bodies. Salem’s older brother and other family members were killed in the attack.
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While waiting to hear back from Cogat regarding their medical evacuation, Eslam and Elia suffered serious blood infections. Eslam’s request was denied and she died soon after. Elia developed sepsis in transit to hospital in Jordan. She died the night before the group was due to fly to the US.
Ahmed Younis, Salam’s father, stays close to Salam by the side of the pool. He says that he still hasn’t fully comprehended what has happened to his family.
“Everything has happened so fast, I haven’t had a chance to properly grieve,” he says. “In such a short space of time, our lives were completely destroyed. We have gone from a family of six to a family of three – like a photograph torn in half.”
Sadeen Abu Daqqa, 10, sits quietly next to her mother Heba, a white eye patch with a pink heart in the middle covering her left eye.
Sadeen had been playing with her dolls when an Israeli rocket landed in her bedroom last July. During the explosion, she lost her left eye and suffered severe burns on her arms and legs that damaged 50% of her skin’s surface area.
Of all the children who travelled together to the US, she is the most confused about why she had to leave her home and family behind.
“My daughter feels homesick and misses her siblings,” says Heba. “She has named her dolls after them and talks to them when she thinks no one is looking.”
Adjusting to life in the US has been challenging for the children’s parents too. “Everything about being here feels so surreal that pretending to be strong for my children who are still alive just feels like part of an act of a show I am on,” says Younis.
A month after they arrived, the Damoo family took a short flight to El Paso to their new temporary home on a quiet, tree-lined street with views of the Franklin mountains, lent to them by a local Palestinian family who had read about Mazyouna’s story and wanted to help.
Mazyouna is now under the care of the El Paso children’s hospital and will require multiple surgeries over the coming months.
The night before her surgery, Mazyouna sat weeping for her father, who is now alone in Gaza. “I’m so worried about him all the time,” she said. “I keep thinking, he can die at any moment, and how that would completely destroy what’s left of us.”
Yet as she heals from the surgery, the family is slowly adjusting to life in the US. Mazyouna and Tala are about to start school and the family has been welcomed by the local community.
All of the girls being treated and their families can stay in the US for a year on their B-2 visas, but with most of Gaza reduced to a wasteland of rubble, their long-term future remains unknown.
“We don’t care where we are, so long as we are all together,” says Damoo.
“Some mornings I wake up and think I am in my bed in Gaza. It takes a few moments before I realise that life doesn’t exist any more and that it never will. That two of my children are dead, my house has been destroyed, and I have no idea when I will see my husband again. But like any parents, we just want our children to be healthy and safe – and to live without constant fear of never-ending war.”
