Only six months after losing both legs, a three-year-old girl from Gaza is walking once again, to the acclaim of American doctors.

After suffering serious injuries in an Israeli attack of her Gaza house in August, Rahaf Saed had her first prosthetic legs installed last Tuesday in Missouri.

She was one of eight youngsters who received US visas for specialized medical care and came in the US in early December.

Following the children’s recuperation, Sky News paid Rahaf a visit a few weeks after she and her mother arrived.


She grinned broadly as she demonstrated her walking abilities on Tuesday at Shriners Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.

Rahaf’s mother, Israa, told Sky News, “I was so happy and proud of her, and watching her walk again was an indescribable feeling.”

Rahaf’s left leg is nearly gone, and she lost her right leg from beneath her knee.

In August, an Israeli missile assault destroyed her family’s house in Gaza, forcing medical professionals to amputate both limbs. She was only learning how to walk.

“The doctors say she is very smart and can easily face obstacles and challenges in the future,” Israa stated.

Since they are still developing, children who have lost limbs require an additional level of care.

Drone captures destruction in Gaza
But she has been showing them Rahaf’s progress.

“In every session with Rahaf, I call my husband and Rahaf’s brothers and they watch Rahaf as she practices walking and they encourage her to do so.”

Rahaf was among a lucky trickle of children permitted to leave Gaza after extensive work by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).

The ceasefire, which took effect yesterday, should now allow for many thousands of others to seek urgent medical care which is not available in Gaza because of the destroyed infrastructure.

Border crossings are to be opened to allow for a massive influx of aid. It’s expected that more injured Gazans will now be permitted to leave.

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Except for in rare cases like Rahaf’s, no injured people have been permitted by Israel, which controls the borders, to leave Gaza since May.

Prosthetists estimate that for every death in a war, there are likely to be three times as many surviving amputees.

According to Hamas-run Gaza authorities, the number of dead in the war has now surpassed 46,600.

According to analysis by the charity Oxfam, more children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than in the equivalent period in any other conflict of the past 18 years.

Those figures give a sense of the number of amputees, adults and children, still inside Gaza.

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