Twelve-year-old Amal Samouni still has shrapnel in her skull from the time Israel bombed her neighbourhood in Gaza in early 2009. Amal lost 21 members of her extended family in that massacre, including her father Attieh and her brother Ahmad. As if she hasn’t suffered enough, Amal has been refused permission to travel through Israel for sorely-needed treatment.
Amal suffers from nose bleeds on a daily basis, as well as severe headaches and an ear infection. She began to lose concentration, became forgetful and encountered difficulties at school.
Along with other local doctors, Gaza-based neurologist Usma al-Aklouk has followed Amal’s case for the past four years. Amal’s is one of many similar cases across the Gaza Strip.
Al-Aklouk explained that injuries caused by shrapnel lodging in the skull or brain "can be treated once the shrapnel is removed, but it is so sensitive to do such surgeries as they might cause paralysis in the person wounded."
Human rights monitors have documented numerous cases in which Israel has refused permission to travel for medical treatment since it withdrew its settlers from Gaza in 2005.Now they're doing so for helpless and innocent children as well.
