Doctors say 2-year-old Habiba al-Askari has days to live as gangrene creeps up her arms and legs, and only an urgent medical evacuation out of Gaza may save her life.
She has a rare genetic condition: a protein C deficiency which causes excessive blood clotting and can lead to a slow death. The condition is highly treatable – but not in Gaza, where healthcare institutions and supplies have been decimated by Israel’s yearslong war in the Palestinian enclave.
Earlier this month, international aid groups worked through the complex process of obtaining permission from Israeli authorities to allow Habiba to leave Gaza for treatment.
Habiba is one of at least 2,500 children in Gaza in urgent need of medical evacuation, according to the UN. Under the recently signed ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza, Israeli authorities are supposed to increase the number of Gaza residents allowed out for treatment.
But no medical evacuations from Gaza have taken place for two weeks. The last evacuation was on January 16, when just 12 patients were evacuated to European countries, according to the World Health Organization. Approximately 12,000 people in Gaza are still awaiting medical evacuation, according to the UN.
Doctors warn of amputation
On Thursday morning, Habiba was admitted to an intensive care unit in Gaza with a suspected lung infection. Surrounded by foreign and local doctors scrambling to keep her alive, she lay barely conscious, moaning in pain between each labored breath.
Gangrene can lead to sepsis — an infection spreading to the bloodstream — that raises the risk of rapid organ failure and death.
Dr. Kuziez first treated Habiba several weeks ago, in Gaza City, and oversaw her care as medics waited for Israeli permission to move her south, a first step in the evacuation process.
But as soon as he landed back in the US, he received news of the dramatic deterioration in her condition. “I’m trying to be there to support the mom, to try and provide whatever medical advice we can provide,” he said, choking back tears.
“But in the back of my mind, I am worried it may have gotten too far. There’s still hope for her, but it’s just decreasing by the minute.”
He’s tormented by the knowledge that Habiba’s condition could have been treated in time, if she had had access to the right facility. When Dr. Kuziez left Gaza, he recalled, “my heart wanted to just take her with me in my arms and run across the border with her.”
Blocking her evacuation will be a death sentence, he warned. “For anybody with medical knowledge, it seems like a deliberate push to essentially kill this child. There’s no other way to describe it. This child needs emergency critical care.”