Feature: Dream broken for Gaza boy after losing leg in rally clashes

by Saud Abu Ramadan

GAZA, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Attallah Fayoumi, a 17-year-old teenager from eastern Gaza city will never fufill his dream of becoming a famous football player after he lost one leg in the Palestinian protests near the Gazan-Israeli border.

An Israeli army sniper shot him in his leg on April 13, the third Friday of protests.

"When I was shot, I didn't know that after three days, my leg would be amputated," Fayoumi said.

The boy is still admitted at the orthopedic department at Shiffa Hospital in Gaza city.

His treatment was delayed when he needed an urgent surgery for the wound, as the Israeli side refused to provide him a permission to leave Gaza for a West Bank or an Israeli hospital, the boy's father Jamil Fayoumi said.

Fayoumi is not the only case with leg amputated during the past four weeks of rallies, according to Sami Abu Sneima, chief of surgery at the European Hospital in southern Gaza Strip.

Many people who were shot with live ammunition had their upper or lower limps amputated, he said.

Last week, 11-year-old Abdul Rahman Noufal was shot in his left leg and he suffered severe bleeding and severe fracture in the bone. His mother said that he was shot in his leg just standing close to the border and watching.

In his case, the Israeli side accepted the request of the health ministry and agreed to transfer the boy to a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah for better medical treatment. However, due to his severe injuries in his leg, it was amputated at the end.

Abu Sneima said they tried their best to avoid amputation, succeeding in 60 cases after "accurate operations, including the delivery of arteries and cleaning."

He told Xinhua about a case of a young lady, Maryam Abu Matar, from eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip.

"Maryam's case is one of the most difficult cases because the arteries are small. We made a link arterial by compensating a piece of vein from the other leg to pump blood," Abu Sneima said.

Abu Sneima added that in most cases, the absence of blood flow to the artery causes the poisoning of the leg and the decline of the patient's condition, which forced doctors to amputate the leg.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the health ministry in Gaza said since the beginning of the rallies on March 30, 5,000 Palestinians were injured, including 1,650 who were shot in their lower limps. 19 of them had their limp amputated.

"Since March 30, the Israeli army killed 39 people, including four children, besides 2 bodies still held in Israel," al-Qedra said.

Hundreds of Palestinians flooded to five different areas close to the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel for the rallies, known as the "Great March of Return."

It is expected to peak on May 15, the day after the 70th anniversary of Israel's declarationof independence but marked by the Palestinians as the Nakba Day, or "Day of the Catastrophe."

Sallah Abdulati, a Gaza-based rights activist and one of the rallies organizers told Xinhua that the Israeli army has been using "excessive force" against the participants. Enditem