Three injured Palestinian children arrived at San Francisco International Airport this week seeking medical care in the Bay Area.
Fourteen-year-old Layan came with her mother and sister. She is seeking treatment for severe burns and shrapnel wounds after a school bombing.
Six-year-old Ghazal also came with her mother and siblings. She was injured by an explosion in Rafah.
Anas, who is eight years old, arrived on Tuesday. He’s seeking treatment for leg injuries he sustained after a bombing. His entire family was killed in the war.
The arrival of Layan, Anas, Ghazal and their families was organized by HEAL Palestine, a non-profit that has helped evacuate over 60 injured Palestinian children and even more family members to the U.S. in the last year-and-a-half.
Steve Sosebee is HEAL Palestine’s executive director and founder.
“ You can imagine the trauma and the experience that these kids have gone through, and to come into an environment, into a society where they're going to be welcomed and gonna have access to clean water, to food, to shelter, to security, and to be welcomed by a loving community is gonna make such a difference in their lives.”
According to Sosebee, it can take months to organize an evacuation from Gaza.
“Because you have to first identify the child on the ground and make sure you have comprehensive information on what their medical needs are. Then communicate with physicians in a treating hospital if they're willing to accept them. Then you get an acceptance letter. Then you have to make a passport for them, which is not available in Gaza — that somehow has to be given to them.
“Then you have to work on getting them out. And right now that's the biggest challenge because you have to go through four different governments: The Palestinian, the Israeli, the Jordanian, and the American governments all have to give a green light for these children to be evacuated. Then the WHO has to find space on their weekly evacuations for these kids to be able to go outside and so on and so forth,” he told KALW.
The costs of evacuation can vary, but on average it’s about $3000 - $4000 per person.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says that more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7th, half of which are women and children. But some, like Sosebee, say this is an underestimate.
“If you've seen the scenes of Gaza and the mass bombings that have taken place, the entire Gaza strip is basically destroyed. There's literally thousands of dead bodies under the rubble that have not been accounted for.”
Sosebee says there are tens of thousands of children in Gaza who need to be evacuated for medical care.
