My Story With The Sixteen-Year-Old Girl

She entered the operating room between the moans of pain and the silence of fear. I looked at her wounded hand — those small fingers that once drew her dreams on paper. I realized there was no escape… amputation was the only way.

I hesitated.

I wanted to resist that decision, but the injury was deeper than hope. I came closer, and in her eyes I saw a fear greater than pain itself. In a trembling whisper, she said to me, "Please, doctor… don’t tell my mother. I don’t want her to be sad."

Her words pierced my heart like a cold blade.

I performed the operation with tears hidden behind my mask. It felt as though I wasn’t just amputating her hand —

I was cutting away a part of her life, her childhood, her future that had only just begun.

Moments later, a woman arrived from under the rubble — her face pale, her hand completely severed. As I approached to operate on her, I heard her name…It was the same as the girl’s. Everything inside me froze. Time stood still. Oh God… she was the girl’s mother.

The daughter lost her hand, the mother lost her hand, and I — I lost a piece of my soul that day.

How can one bear such pain?

How can a hand that once dreamed of writing, painting, and creating be gone forever?

How can a mother who used to wipe her children’s tears and hold them close now live without her touch?

This pain is unbearable.

They are not numbers on the news —

they are hearts that stopped mid-beat, dreams that were slaughtered before the world’s eyes.

The occupation did not only kill our bodies; it planted within us wounds that will never heal, and fractures that time cannot mend.

And yet, we say:

We will remain here. We will live here.

This is our land. Even if we bleed, we will bloom from our wounds.

Gaza is not asking for the impossible —

she only asks not to be left alone.

She asks the world to hear the cry of a mother who lost her hand, and the silent tears of a daughter hiding her amputation from her mother. She asks for humanity if any still remains.

They are left with wounds — physical and psychological. The pain is immense and the injustice merciless. Yet, despite this heaviness in our chests, we say: we will stay here, we will live here — this is our land.

In spite of the hardships, we will grow stronger, more determined, more resolute.

Do not leave us alone — Gaza needs the decent, the free people of the world.

Dr Nasim
Orthopaedic Surgeon
Gaza
Palestine

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