After his evacuation from Gaza to Qatar, Palestinian child Mahmoud Youssef Ajour (9) still dreams of one day becoming a pilot, despite having his arms amputated after being injured in an Israeli missile attack.
In a small apartment in the Qatari capital Doha, Mahmoud Ajour’s mother slowly helps her child put on a school uniform in preparation for school. It will take some time to fit him with two prosthetic limbs.
The boy said the missile hit him as he was preparing to leave his home in Gaza last December with his parents.
He added: “I was sleeping on the floor and I don’t know if anything happened to me. I don’t know if my hands were cut off.”
Severe pain
His mother said he was operated on in Gaza under limited anesthesia and woke up after the operation to find himself in severe pain and with both arms amputated.
The child was able to leave the disaster area, where the Israeli aggression has destroyed many hospitals, and doctors say they are often forced to perform surgeries without any anesthesia or painkillers.
Qatar has taken in many injured residents of the Gaza Strip for treatment.
Mahmoud Ajour longs to return to the Gaza Strip, which was full of life before the Israeli aggression, despite widespread poverty and high unemployment rates in one of the most densely populated places in the world. His home was destroyed during the Israeli aggression.
More than 41 thousand martyrs
The Gaza Strip’s health ministry says the Israeli aggression has so far resulted in the deaths of at least 41,118 Palestinians, the injury of 95,125 others, the displacement of around two million people and the destruction of most of the Gaza Strip.
Mahmoud Ajour said: “I hope that Gaza will return to the way it was before, and that it will be better and kinder like before.”
At the long-established Palestinian school in Doha, Ajour sits and waits patiently while his colleagues write the lessons, then raises his voice with them when he answers the teacher’s questions.
School psychologist Haneen Al Salamat considers Ajour an inspiration, saying: “There are times when you feel like you, as a person, draw strength from him.”
Ajour refuses to give in to physical restrictions and says confidently: “I will try everything and become a pilot… I still play ball with the boys. Yesterday, I was playing with my friends. I hope I have two hands so that I can go back to what I was before and I hope to hold the ball in my hand.”