March 19, 2008
Jerusalem Healthcare

Care for sick children in Palestine

Sir, Walter Felman (letters, March 14) writes of the work of the Wolfson Medical Centre’s cardiac programme for children and implies that Palestinian children with congenital heart disease can access appropriate treatment through Israeli institutions.

Unfortunately, this is only part of the story. The International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organisation (IPCRO) has been treating children from the West Bank and Gaza in the Makassed Hospital in east Jerusalem for many years, but the development of the programme there has been consistently impeded by restrictions placed by the Israeli authorities on travel by families from Gaza and the West Bank. Despite efforts by the British Consul in Jerusalem to facilitate access to hospital treatment, far too many children die or suffer long-term morbidity as a result of the unacceptable and inhumane approach to sick Palestinian patients prevalent in that part of the world.

Babulal Sethia, FRCS
Consultant Cardiac Surgeon
President, IPCRO

September 4, 2007
Love inspires mission to repair what a bomb took from Iraqi girl
Fran Henry
Plain Dealer Reporter

Teeba Furat Fahdil is very much a girly-girl, her toenails lacquered shiny pink and her jeans and flip-flops sparkling with sequins. "Anything princess-y," said the tall blond woman Teeba calls "Mama Barbara."

The Iraqi child was 18 months old when a bomb ripped apart a taxi in which she was riding in Baquba, 40 miles north of Baghdad, in September 2003. The explosion killed her 3-year-old brother and left her face and scalp a blanket of scar tissue.

Barbara Marlowe, of Concord Township, quickly read the few paragraphs about Teeba in a newspaper July 15, 2006, but studied her photograph for a long while.

Marlowe had always avoided volunteering with children because they reminded her of how much she wanted children of her own. But as she lingered on Teeba's eyes in the photo, she felt an unfathomable closeness to the child. Read More

September 6, 2007
A new beginning
Jenny May

Young girl finds unconditional love, friendship and help in Concord Twp.


It's a sunny summer afternoon and in the living room of Barbara Marlowe's Concord Township home, and 5-year-old Teeba Furat Fahdil is snuggled in Marlowe's lap, helping her turn the pages of a children's book.

Teeba doesn't understand most of the words Marlowe is reading aloud. But as she watches Marlowe's face, she seems to understand something more important - that Marlowe loves her unconditionally.

With pink scar tissue covering her olive-toned face, scalp and hands, Teeba has already learned that such acceptance is not universal.

Her marred complexion and bald, charred scalp is the result of a Sept. 2, 2003, incident that occurred near her hometown of Khuailis, Iraq, 40 miles north of Baghdad. Read more

September 4, 2007
Demand for prosthetic limbs by amputees outpaces supply in Baghdad
James Palmer, Chronicle Foreign Service

Ibrahim Sadic Shokic stares at the wide scar that runs along what remains of his leg.

Thirteen months ago, surgeons severed the 15-year-old's right leg above the knee after it was mangled by a roadside bomb while Shokic was enjoying a sunset stroll in central Baghdad.

Four months after the attack, Shokic was fitted for an artificial limb at a government facility, but he is still waiting for his prosthesis - tottering along on a pair of decrepit crutches he bought on the black market for $40.

"I get very depressed when I look at him," Faras Emir says of his cousin, who has now waited nine months for his new leg. "He's a young man, but he can't do any of the things people his age normally do, like go to school or play soccer. It's even difficult for him to use the bathroom." Read more

July 16, 2007
Teeba's Journey
CLEVELAND -- Concord woman brings burned girl from Iraq to Cleveland for medical care.

It's 9:15 P.M. on July 16, 2007. Exactly a year to the day Barbara Marlowe picked up her Sunday paper and read a story about a little girl that would change both of their lives.

The woman from Concord has no connection to the Middle East. She can't speak Arabic and knows nothing of Muslim culture. But the picture of a 5-year-old little girl sitting on her father's lap haunted her.

When Teeba Furat was 19 months old, she and her family were on their way to a doctor's appointment when an insurgent's bomb hit their cab. The blast killed Teeba's 3-and-a-half year old brother and severely burned the little girl's head, face and hands.

Barbara was volunteering for Wigs for Kids, an organization that gives hair pieces to children who lose their hair from medical problems. Read more |Watch news story

June 27, 2007
Potomac family helps boy heal

The Mikdadi family of Potomac has been hosting a special visitor this month — Mohammad Athamna, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who traveled from the Gaza Strip to the United States to be fitted for a new prosthetic arm.

Athamna lost his arm and 17 family members when missiles hit his home last November.

The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, an American humanitarian organization that provides free medical service in the United States for sick and injured children, arranged for Athamna’s treatment, donated by the District Amputee Care Center in Washington, D.C.

Athamna got his new arm earlier this month and has been adapting to it with the help and support of the Mikdadi family.

‘‘My heart goes out to those children, especially children trapped in war zones,” said Zena Mikdadi. ‘‘Children are children and they come here all by themselves.”

Taking care of Athamna during his stay has been both challenging and rewarding, she said.
‘‘He comes from a country where they have nothing, not even basic water,” she said.

He had to adjust to many things — from using a shower to even sleeping in his own room. But even after only a few weeks, Mikdadi said she has seen a big change in the boy.

However, she said there’s still a long way to go for Athamna to learn how to fully use his new arm, before he returns to Gaza on July 7.

‘‘It’s very easy to heal the physical scars,” she said, ‘‘but very hard to heal the mental and emotional scars.”

'Deadly ball' changed his life forever
By Rania Habib, Staff Reporter

Abu Dhabi: Five years ago, Shehada Zyoud picked up a ball on a street in Selet Al Harthia, a town 10 kilometres from Jenin, Palestine, and became yet another silent victim of the Israeli occupation.

It was a child's reflex, one that changed the boy's life. Little did Shehada know that he had picked up an unexploded shell.

He bears scars on his right forearm, another on the palm of his hand with which he picked up the fated 'toy. Read more

April 29, 2007
Young Gaza amputee takes steps in Oakland
By Angela Hill, STAFF WRITER
OAKLAND — He was early for his appointment, of course. Seven-year-old Abdallah al-Athamna, who has been staying with Fatima and Adli Rasheed and their children in San Ramon for the past month, could barely sleep the night before. He talked nonstop Thursday morning while Adli Rasheed drove him to the specialist's office in Oakland, as if somehow the rush of words would make the car go faster.

After all, this very day was the reason for Abdallah's visit to the United States. This was the day he would get his new leg.

The bright-eyed little boy lost his lower right leg, just above the ankle, last Nov. 8 when Israeli shells fell on his family's house in the Palestinian city of Beit Hanoun, on the northeast edge of the Gaza Strip. Read more

April 9, 2007
Charity performance in aid of sick children
to raise AED 500 thousand
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) in Abu Dhabi, organized charity performances on sixth and seventh of April 2007 in Abu and Sharjah raising over 500 thousand dirhams.
United Arab Emirates

H.E. Sheikh Nayan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, along with H.E. Dr. Khairi Al Oraidi, the Ambassador of the State of Palestine, attended the Abu Dhabi performance. 'The Abu Dhabi and Sharjah performances had a great turn out and was a huge achievement,' said Tanya Zabaneh Hourani, Chair, PCRF-Abu Dhabi. Read more


March 22, 2007
Adjusting to a new life
Jenna Staul
Daily Kent Stater

Hussein Yassian, of Iraq, is one of the many children who has lived with Steve Sosebee after being brought to America for medical help. Yassian was involved in a bus bombing in 2005 that left him without a right eye and half of his left arm.

A smile beams from Hussein Yassian's face as he flings his jacket and Kent State ski hat to the floor: The 11-year-old has just received two dollars to spend at a Satterfield Hall vending machine, and in this simple moment life seems pretty good.

Within seconds, he dashes to the junk-food-stocked apparatus with unbridled urgency and dollar bills in hand. Staring at a seemingly endless selection of snacks, his face tenses in deliberation as he makes this all-important decision. Will it be a candy bar or potato chips?

Hussein has, however, seen grimmer days. Read more

March 17, 2007
Injured Iraqi boy grateful for Kent man's assistance Helped bring 11-year-old to United States for treatment
Matthew Fredmonsky

Hussein Yasser struggled to eat a McDonald's Chicken McNugget -- a task most other 11-year-olds take for granted.

Grasping it with the prosthesis extending from his left elbow, Hussein pulled a string to lift the clutching hand close to his mouth and craned his neck to take a bite.

"Awww, come on," he said, the nugget just out of reach. He used his right hand to aid the prosthetic and laughed when honey slowly dripped from the nugget to the dining room table.

Hussein was staying in Kent with Steve Sosebee, president of the Kent-based Palestine Children's Relief Fund. In 2004, Hussein, a native of Iraq, lost his left arm and right eye in an explosion along a road in southern Iraq. Sosebee helped arrange Hussein's trip to the United States where he received treatment in Arizona. Read more

March 14, 2007
Kindness that will be remembered forever
Kent charity aids Iraqi boy's recovery
By Colette M. Jenkins
Beacon Journal staff writer

Hussein Yasser, 11, a 5th grader at Holden Elementary School in Kent, works on a scrapbook in the classroom of teacher Linda Miles on Tuesday, March 13, 2007, in Stow, Ohio. Yasser lost his left arm and right eye in a bomb blast in Iraq in April of 2004 and has been in the US getting treatment for his wounds.

KENT - Hussein Yasser remembers walking along a road in southern Iraq on his way to visit his grandfather's grave.

"We took a bus, and Dad was giving money to the guy who took us,'' 11-year-old Hussein said.

"I was walking up a little bit further, and I don't remember anything else.''

What Hussein doesn't remember is the explosion nearly three years ago that claimed his left arm and right eye and caused extensive burns on his face.

What he's not likely to forget is the medical treatment he received in the United States. And he is thankful to the Kent-based Palestine Children's Relief Fund for making that treatment possible. Read more

Friday, March 09, 2007
Iraqi boy recovering after surgery
Sherri Williams
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Doctors repaired two holes in Badr Taha’s heart. The 20-monthold Iraqi boy couldn’t get the surgery in Baghdad.

An Iraqi boy with a heart defect had a successful surgery yesterday at Children’s Hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.

Badr Taha, 20 months, will spend the next day or two in the intensive-care unit at Children’s and another three days in the hospital, said Dr. Mark Galantowicz, who performed the surgery.

The child arrived in Columbus last week with his mother, Dunia Abdelrahman, 30. Both live in Baghdad where the surgery to repair Badr’s heart is not available.

Badr suffered from tetralogy of Fallot, a hole between two chambers in the heart that prevents blood from properly flowing to the lungs. The condition creates the risk of stroke because blood thickens to compensate for the lack of oxygen. Read more

January 23, 2007
Iraqi boy hurt in blast set to head home from Phoenix
Terry Tang
Associated Press

A walk to his grandfather's grave in Najaf, Iraq, almost cost Hussein Yasser his own life.

For the 11-year-old, the time between stepping on a land mine and waking up in a hospital is a blank. And he's relieved.

"I'm really happy that I don't remember anything," he said. "Some kid asked me a question one time, (I said) it was just an accident' and just walked away. I don't want to get into it."

Phoenix surgeons and specialists have helped Hussein move on from the 2003 land mine explosion that left him with a mangled body and almost no sight. Read more

November 26, 2006
Horrors of Mideast haven't taken 10-year-old's smile
BY Michael Riley

Ten-year-old Adham Ghalia has a shy smile that can light up a room and break your heart. His left leg has a metal rod in it, not to mention bone fragments and shrapnel.

These days, he's a long way from home in the Middle East and forever removed from the way his life used to be.

Because on June 8, the Ghalia family picnic on a stretch of Gaza beach ended in blood and noise and tears and death.

A mortar exploded on the shore and blew up Adham's family, killing seven of them — his father, his stepmother and five siblings — and injuring seven others. According to news reports at the time, there was some confusion about the circumstances surrounding the explosion. Israeli defense forces have since apologized for the incident, claiming it was an errant shell fired from an Israeli ship offshore. Read more

October 29, 2006
Palestinian girl, 5, undergoes surgery for burns in Dubai
By Zoi Constantine, Staff Reporter

Dubai: Just weeks after 13-year-old Yousuf Halahla successfully completed three months of treatment to correct severe deformities in his legs, another young Palestinian child, Rawan Al Ghoul, has arrived in Dubai.

Rawan, 5, underwent recontructive surgery for first-degree burns to her upper body at Dubai's Welcare Hospital on Thursday after travelling from the West Bank town of Jenin last week.

Growing up in the besieged West Bank town of Jenin the scene of frequent Israeli military incursions Rawan has witnessed tragedy in her young life. Read more

October 15, 2006
Helping one girl face the future with hope
Disfigured by war, a young Iraqi finds medical aid and caring strangers in L.A.
By Kurt Streeter, Times Staff Writer

IT WAS shrapnel that brought her to Los Angeles. Hot and sharp, it pierced her legs, her stomach and her right hand. It mangled her face around her deep brown eyes, and it tore off her nose.

"I'm hurt," Marwa cried. "Mommy, I'm hurt in my face. I'm hurt, Mommy. My face."

A missile? Mortar? Whose? It was impossible to know. The Americans were invading Baghdad, and Marwa Naim blamed them. She would never forget the explosion. It had blown up her house, thrown her into the air and flung her on top of her mother. Marwa saw a hole the shrapnel carved into her mother's stomach.

Her mother lay still. Marwa saw blood. "Mommy, Mommy, get up…. "

Then Marwa's vision began to fade. She would recall thinking that she herself was dying. Or that maybe she was already dead. Before she lost consciousness, she heard her aunt screaming for her father.

"Mohammed!" her aunt cried. "Your wife is dead! Your wife is dead!"

Marwa was 9 years old. Read more

Kuwaiti surgeon volunteers treatment to Palestinian kids
By Velina Nacheva
Staff Reporter

KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti surgeon has helped ease the pain of some 70 Palestinian youth living in severe conditions at a refugee camp in south Lebanon. Having seen a report on TV about Palestinian children being medically treated locally and abroad, the wife of Dr Husam Basheer (orthopaedic surgeon), wrote down the contacts of the US-based relief organisation providing the support. For Dr Basheer, the first Kuwaiti doctor to help the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund aka PCRF, this was the first step into the aid align.

Sitting in his doctor's office in Kuwait, Dr Basheer narrated the story of his primary volunteering experience, which he says, changed him enormously. "I put down the website and wrote them asking: How can I help?" he recalled and empathy was felt in his tone. Read more

Helping the youngest victims of conflict
Organization makes a difference by arranging free medical care
Ron Allen
Correspondent

GAZA - In the afternoon, kids fill a Gaza street, but 4-year-old Issra is too afraid to come outside.

"She always complains her eye hurts," says her mother.

Issra was wounded on the street where she was playing in March, when an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinian militants in a car. It was retaliation for a suicide attack that had killed 11 Israelis.

Issra and others raced to the hospital. Three children died. Issra, badly wounded, lost an eye. Read More | Watch Bay area news story (windows media player)

June 26, 2006
Palestinian girl gets new eye
MEDICAL RELIEF ORGANIZATION HELPS CHILDREN OF MIDDLE EAST
By Dana Hull

The Palestinian girl clutched her stuffed animal and managed to be brave. Her mother murmured prayers in Arabic, weeping as she softly rocked little Isra'a back and forth in her arms.

Isra'a El Batsh, just 3 1/2 years old, lost her right eye in March when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile into her densely populated Gaza neighborhood. Her eye is a sunken hole, and shrapnel wounds still cover her face.

But on Friday, San Jose ocularist Raymond Rendon fitted Isra'a with a prosthetic eye. They had been brought together by the non-profit Palestine Children's Relief Fund, or PCRF, which keeps an extensive database of children from the Palestinian territories and elsewhere in the Middle East who desperately need specialized medical treatment. Read more |Watch NBC Nightly News Story


June 12, 2006
Iraqi Child Injured In Missile Attack Completes Surgery At UCLA

LOS ANGELES -- A 12-year-old Iraqi girl whose face was disfigured when a missile struck her home will return to Iraq later this month after a series of surgeries at UCLA to rebuild her nose.

Marwa Naim was injured in April 2003 when her family's home in the Mada'en district of northern Baghdad was shelled. The home was destroyed, and Naim's mother was killed.

Humanitarian groups such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict arranged to have Naim brought to UCLA for treatment in February.

She has since undergone a four-month series of reconstructive surgeries, all of which were provided free by UCLA Medical Center. Doctors used a skin flap from her forehead and ear cartilage to build her a new nose, hospital officials said.

Doctors are scheduled to discuss the surgeries and plans for Naim to return to Iraq at a news conference in Westwood today. Read More

Jun 13, 2006
12-Year-Old Iraqi Girl Gets New Nose in LA
By ALICIA CHANG
AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- When 12-year-old Marwa Naim took off the bandage from her nose earlier this month, she smiled in a handheld mirror. Her face, damaged when a missile attack in Iraq caused her to lose part of her nose, was reconstructed.

On Monday, Naim showed off her face to others. Dressed in a light green burqa, she hugged and thanked the doctors who performed the operation and said she looked forward to reuniting with her father and three siblings in Iraq when she returns there later this month.

"They helped me a lot and they treated me well," Naim, speaking through an interpreter, said of the doctors.

Naim lost a chunk of her nose and her right thumb when a coalition missile struck her home in northern Baghdad in April 2003 in an attack that killed her mother, according to several humanitarian groups that arranged for the girl's trip to California. Read more

June 8, 2006
'I am not scared about the operation'
By Zoi Constantine, Staff Reporter

Dubai: The 50th floor of the Emirates Towers office building is literally a world away from the crowded streets of the West Bank city of Hebron. But, that is exactly where 13-year old Yousuf Halahla found himself yesterday afternoon, after travelling from Palestine to Dubai for medical treatment.

Yousuf suffers from congenital deformities in both legs and through the support of the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), has travelled with his mother, Kareema, via Jordan, to receive treatment at the International Modern Hospital in Dubai. Read More

May 25, 2006
Care encourages teen at U-M clinic Son, mother endure ordeal of recovery
BY JO COLLINS MATHIS

Two years ago, 9-year-old Majed Mousa and his 14-year-old brother, Zaman, left their house in Najaf, Iraq, to buy some groceries.

They never made it to the market.

A war-zone explosion killed Zaman and left Majed nearly blind, with shrapnel imbedded in his skin and eyes. His badly damaged right leg was later amputated below the knee.

During his slow and painful recovery in Iraq, a despondent Majed told his mother it might have been better if he, too, had died.

On Wednesday afternoon, Majed, now 11, was far from the war as he sat in a prosthetics clinic at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, managing an occasional smile as he talked with doctors through an interpreter. Read More

February 16, 2006
Moroccan trek 'will break down cultural barriers'
By Daniel Bardsley and Zoi Constantine, Staff Reporters

Dubai: An intrepid group of women is about to set off on a trip to trek through the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and break down cultural barriers at the same time.
The ten-strong team of adventurers will next week fly to North Africa to begin their arduous six-day trek through rugged countryside.

Palestinian, Jordanian, Sudanese, Dutch and British women are taking part in the trip, which is being led by experienced climbers Julie Amer and Suzanne Al Houby.
Julie, a Briton who runs adventure company Mountain High, said the trip was "very symbolic" for the women taking part. Read more

Sunday, May 7, 2006
Palestinians losing link to U.S. care
Sanctions against Hamas threaten to harm program for kids, entire medical system
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Jerusalem -- Four-year-old Sundras Badran sat still while Dr. Mahmoud Nashashibi, a Palestinian pediatric cardiologist, checked her heart on an echocardiogram at the El-Mokassed Hospital in East Jerusalem.

Sundras, a Palestinian girl from the West Bank village of Anata, was attending a clinic funded by the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, an Ohio-based charity that treats about 2,000 critically ill children in the Palestinian territories each year.

But even if Sundras needs cardiac surgery, the future of the children's charity program has been thrown into doubt by U.S. sanctions against the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority banning all contact with Palestinian hospitals and Ministry of Health employees >>Read more

12/23/2005
Local hospital treats girl shot by sniper fire
By Patricia Jiayi Ho Staff Writer

ARCADIA - It was about a year ago that Samah Ouda stood by a window in her home in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, and was shot in the head by a stray sniper bullet.

On Monday, Samah's 12th birthday, she underwent treatment at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia to patch up a part of her skull where the bullet exited. She was released Thursday.

Though Samah received some medical attention in Gaza and her wounds have healed, the bullet left a 4-by-5-centimeter hole in the right frontal portion of her skull.

Dr. Bala S. Chandrasekhar, a surgeon at Methodist Hospital, inserted a metal plate during a delicate two-and-a-half-hour procedure.

"It's a privilege for a physician to take care of kids like this. They have done no harm," he said.
The swelling on Samah's forehead will go down and she is expected to recover in two weeks, though doctors said she will likely have weakness on her right side and some speech difficulties.
Samah and her mother, Nawal Ouda, arrived in mid-December with help from the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, an apolitical nonprofit organization that helps locate free medical care for children from the Middle East who otherwise would be unable to get specialized treatment.
The organization has helped almost 40 children get treatment in California.

Sunday, November 27, 2005
After several surgeries, Palestinian goes home
Youth was burned in a rocket attack
By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff

GROTON -- After spending nearly three months in the Boston area with a series of host families and undergoing two reconstructive surgeries, Mohammad Zughayer, 13, was ready to return home to Hebron in the West Bank yesterday.

Mohammad was tired of being fussed over twice a day by caretakers who rubbed cream over the skin grafts on his lower back and legs -- a sticky substance that would stain his clothes. And Marwan ElMasri, a chemist from Groton who has been Mohammad's legal guardian since the teen arrived in Massachusetts in September for medical treatment, was telling Mohammad's father to make sure the youth stuck to his doctors' orders.

''Don't let him trick you into not doing it," ElMasri said he told the teen's father, just hours before Mohammad was scheduled to depart on a flight through Paris to Amman, Jordan, on his way home. ''He needs to do it." Read more

Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Clash of cultures takes back seat to boy’s suffering
By Bonnie Eslinger

In a humanitarian gesture that cuts across political lines, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy is scheduled to receive surgery today in San Francisco from a Jewish doctor at California Pacific Medical Center.

The boy, Hamza Jneidy, traveled to the United States without his parents to receive the surgery on his left hand, which is partially paralyzed. He was injured after being shot while walking home from school last December, according to Steve Sosebee, head of the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, the American nonprofit that arranged for the surgery and paid for the youth’s transportation costs.

Cal Pacific and the surgeon, Dr. Kyle Bickel, a specialist in orthopedic and reconstructive surgery, have both donated the services to help Jneidy, he said. Read more

Friday, October 21, 2005
Kent-based group helps mend child's heart
Donna Iacoboni

Duha Ibrahim and her baker husband held their breath every time a plane approached their Baghdad home.

So far, the bombs had missed them, though they had been without running water and electricity for much of the war.

"We live in fear. Afraid a lot," Ibrahim said through a translator in Cleveland recently.
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But she had a bigger fear. One that gripped her more than war and bombs.

It was a fear that made her strong enough, brave enough to endure a risky 12-hour taxi ride across northwest Iraq to Jordan, where she waited for three weeks for a visa before boarding a plane for the first time. Read More

May 29, 2005
MAHMOUD MAKES THE WALK TO FULL RECOVERY
Palestinian blast victim, fourteen-year old Mahmoud is smiling again and will soon be back on his feet, thanks to the efforts of Dubai Bone and Joint Centre (DBAJ) and the Belhoul Specialist Hospital, Dubai.

Mahmoud's leg was shattered 10 months ago in a Gaza missile blast that killed 14 people, including his 22-year old brother and uncle, and injured many bystanders. He suffered a gaping wound on his lower left leg and shrapnel wound to his spine, which caused permanent damage to one of his spinal nerves.

Today, he's smiling again and ready to head home. "The medical staff here are very good and I am well cared for by them," said Mahmoud, recovering after the operation that was performed by DBAJ specialist orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Chris Whately. Read More

May 22, 2005
Iraqi boy going home
Journey has been long and difficult, but roadside bomb victim is adjusting to life on prosthetic legs
By Kymberli Hagelberg

For just a minute, a datebook on the desk in a therapist's examining room is more interesting to the third-grader than the Batman comic book he holds.

He spots his name in the entries, one of the few words he recognizes in the English that is scrawled across the blocks in bright red marker.

Majid Hopkins

Majid Surgery
Read more>>>

February 21, 2005
One Step at a Time, Iraqi boy adjusts to life with new legs
Kent pupils welcome third-grader injured last year in bombing

Kent- At Holden Elementary School, Majid Fadhil Sabor often stands quietly behind his desk while others sit.

And when the third-graders in his class line up for lunch, the smiling brown-eyed boy usually is first in line.

His knock-kneed gait is almost a trost, full of joy and haphazard angles. With more energy than grace and more guts than balance, he's always in a hurry to get everywhere. Read more

February 18, 2005
Apolitical assistance
Iraqi boy receives life-saving heart treatment in Charlottesville with help from Palestianian Children's Relief Fund, University community

He likes to play basketball and soccer and bang away on the toy keyboard. His heroes are Tom and Jerry. And if his mother would let him, he would change his name to "Pikachu". But the 46-pound 10-year old hasn't had much of a childhood.

"Every other month we have been at the hospital for tests and treatments," said Nourhan Othman, an Iraqi widow who arrived in Charlottesville with her ailing son Yousef in late January. Read more

February 17, 2005
Arkansas Doctor to Perform Operations in West Bank
Dr. Mark Ray remembers gunfire outside his operating room and seeing acquaintances wheeled into the Ramallah Government Hospital with knife wounds.
But the Arkansas Children's Hospital ear, nose and throat surgeon also remembers mothers begging him to operate on their children. That, he said, is what draws him back to the West Bank for a second time. He leaves Thursday with a scrub nurse and resident for the weeklong trip to repair Palestinian children's cleft palate and lip deformities. Read More

January 19, 2005
Walking brings a smile to face of Iraqi boy
11-year-old who lost his legs in a bomb blast uses prosthetics to takee first steps in year

At least once a day since his arival in Ohio, Majid Fadhil Sabor has seen the hand signal.

Walking two two fingers across an open hand, doctors, the men who made his artifical legs - and perfect strangers - all have asked him, "You ready to walk?".

When the time came Tuesday for Majid to take his first steps in almost a year, Yanke Bionics prosthetist and biomedical engineer Kevin Montini tried to temper expectations. Read More >>>

Jan. 15, 2005
Iraqi boy in Akron tries on pair of legs
Pain at end of stumps has gone; limbs fitted; walking awaits Tuesday
By Kymberli Hagelberg

On the 11-year-old's scale of thrills, this must have been bigger than flying halfway around the world to an unknown country without your parents.

It must have been more fantastic than watching Mickey Mouse and Nemo float across the ice in Cleveland.

On Friday in Akron -- 11 months after he was almost killed in a roadside explosion near his home in Iraq -- Majid Fadhil Sabor got new legs.

The pair of clear plastic ``diagnostic sockets'' weren't much to look at. They didn't even have feet yet, but their value to the boy who had come so far to get them was immeasurable and clear.
It was in his grin -- and on each artificial limb on which he marked his name in careful blue Arabic script.

These legs belong to Majid. Read More>>>

January 05, 2005
Iraqi boy could be fitted with new legs in 2 weeks
-- An 11-year-old Iraqi boy who lost part of both legs to a bomb blast near his home could be fitted with prosthetic legs within two weeks of surgery done Tuesday to remove bone shards.
 
Majid Fadhil Sabor was brought to the United States for medical care by the Kent-based Palestine Children's Relief Fund.
The surgery at Akron Children's Hospital was needed because the shards could make wearing prosthetic limbs painful, Dr. Paul Fleissner said. The boy's limbs are severed just below each knee. Read More>>>

Jan. 05, 2005
Iraqi boy is closer to wish of walking
11-year-old who lost legs has surgery, will get prosthetics
by Kymberli Hagelberg

Eleven-year-old Majid Fadhil Sabor doesn't speak English yet, but he easily answered questions put to him by a crowd of reporters and photographers.

What does the Iraqi boy most want to do while he's in America?

"Walk," Majid whispered to his interpreter in Arabic, smiling shyly.

Nearly a year ago, Majid lost both legs below the knee in a roadside explosion near his home in Iraq. Read More>>>

Jan. 04, 2005
Iraqi boy arrives in Akron
Youth, 11, who lost legs in roadside explosion to undergo surgery before getting prosthetics

An Iraqi boy who lost both legs to a bomb blast near his home in Iraq has arrived in Akron for medical care and prosthetic legs.

Eleven-year-old Majid Fadhil Sabor will require sugery to remove bone shards below his knees that would otherwise make wearing prosthetic limbs painful, Dr. Paul Fleissner said Monday after the boy's first doctor visit at the Crystal Clinic. Read More>>>

November 24, 2004
Iraqi boy injured in war to get prosthetic legs here
By Jim Carney
An Iraqi boy who lost both legs to a roadside bomb in Mosul, Iraq, will be brought to Akron in December and given prosthetic legs.

The Kent-based Palestine Children's Relief Fund is coordinating and sponsoring the effort to bring the boy to Ohio for treatment.

Steve Sosebee, the president and CEO of the nonprofit organization, said he and his wife will pick up 12-year-old Majid Fadhil and his father in Amman, Jordan. Read More>>>

September 30, 2004
A Palestinian Ronaldo's Stolen Dreams
11-YEAR-OLD LOST HIS LEG IN A MISSILE ATTACK
A Palestinian Ronaldo's Stolen Dreams
11-YEAR-OLD LOST HIS LEG IN A MISSILE ATTACK

WASHINGTON, DC - September 13, 2004 — Eleven-year-old Hamad El-Neirab does not remember much about the explosion that sent metal shards through his body and severed his left leg. But today the boy from a Gaza Strip refugee camp sat half a world away in a state-of-the-art Washington, DC examination room to be fitted for a new leg.

On the morning of May 19, after three days of continuous assaults on Rafah, the IDF partially pulled back its tanks from the heart of Rafah's Tel-el-Sultan neighorhood and took up positions at its entrances. For three days and nights the residents of Tel-el-Sultan had lived without electricity, water, or food. They lived in complete darkness, too afraid to pull open the curtains on their windows for fear of a sniper's eager shot. The IDF's code name for this invasion was "Operation Rainbow." According to Palestinian medical sources, 56 Palestinians were killed during "Operation Rainbow." The children among them numbered 22.

June 7, 2004
Israeli Missiles Prevent Palestinian Ronaldo from Playing Football
GAZA, June 7, 2004, (WAFA)- Following Israeli raids on Palestinian cities, refugee camps and villages, international media used to deal with the Palestinian victims as figures; Inhuman competition to pick up the "exact" number of the killed and wounded civilians, ignoring thousands of Palestinian children who were forced to continue their lives in miserable situation.
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Hamad al-Nairab, 11-year-old, Palestinian boy from the Refugee Camp of al-Shaboura in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah (125,000 population), lost his leg in the "eventful" Israeli raid on a peaceful march in Rafah on May 19th in which 70 civilians were killed and wounded, children were the vast majority. Read More

May 21, 2004
Throughout Conflict, Relief Organization Responds
By Sonia Nettnin
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund established itself during the first intifada (uprising). The organization formed in response to the urgent needs of Palestinian children caught in the gunfire of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

PCRF’s 2003 annual report outlines their humanitarian relief. Regardless of political positions, the report reveals insightful facts about the effects of warfare. Read More

The roar of helicopters overhead was Nicola Gini's first clue that something major had happened. The New Zealand intensive care nurse walked out on the balcony and peered into the streets of Gaza. Below, the Shifa Hospital carpark was swarming with screaming people and tooting cars. Read More

March 12, 2004
Middle Eastern boy has hole in his heart fixed in Cleveland

Hanan Ashrawi
Speaks to 1,000 at American Friends

September 2, 2003
Palestinian youth has surgery for bullet injury
Arrangements were made to bring him to O.C., where he is staying with a family for a month.
By THERESA SALINAS
The Orange County Register

LADERA RANCH – Abdullah Abu Salah sat anxiously in a wheelchair last week, dreaming about the day when he can rouse his right leg into action and play soccer or frolic on the beach once more, thinking about his upcoming surgery.

The slight Palestinian boy has been unable to feel anything below his right knee since he was shot in the thigh by an Israeli soldier in February. Salah, 13, underwent a six-hour surgery at an Orange County hospital Tuesday to reconstruct a nerve severed during the shooting. His surgeon, Dr. Farzadi Massoudi, said Salah is doing well.
The surgery has a 20 percent to 30 percent chance of working, he said. It will take Salah six months to two years of intense physical therapy to fully recover, he added. Read More>>>

August 27, 2003
The Gift Of Life
Written by Jennifer Ryan

George Washington hospital spokesperson Marti Harris says a two-hour interventional procedure performed by Anthony Venbrux, MD, Director of Interventional Radiology and Elizabeth Ignacio, MD, has cured 15 year-old Palestinian teenager, Saleh Al-Hajin, of a deadly aneurysm. Through a tiny incision, a catheter was fed to the site of the aneurysm. The catheter held a self-expanding, covered metallic stent, which was used to seal the aneurysm. GW physicians are optimistic that Saleh will make a full recovery and require no further medical intervention for the aneurysm. Read More>>> | More News Stories about Salah | Arabic Story 1| 2 | Watch News Story 1 |2|3

August 23, 2003
GW Hospital Provides Free Care to Injured Palestinian Teen
15-year-old Saleh Al-Hajin has Deadly Aneurysm as a Result of Tank Shell Explosion

WASHINGTON— A two-hour interventional procedure performed by Anthony Venbrux, MD, Director of Interventional Radiology and Elizabeth Ignacio, MD, has cured 15 year-old Palestinian teenager, Saleh Al-Hajin, of a deadly aneurysm. Through a tiny incision, a catheter was fed to the site of the aneurysm. The catheter held a self-expanding, covered metallic stent, which was used to seal the aneurysm. GW physicians are optimistic that Saleh will make a full recovery and require no further medical intervention for the aneurysm. Read More >>>

August, 2003
GW Hospital Provides Care to Injured Palestinian Teen
15-year-old Saleh Al-Hajin has Deadly Aneurysm as a Result of Tank Shell Explosion

WASHINGTON- 15 year-old Saleh Al-Hajin was severely injured when a tank shell exploded last September, leaving several flechettes, or darts, lodged into the boy's body. The flechettes caused Saleh serious injury including an aneurysm near a major artery. While currently stable, the aneurysm acts as a time bomb; it could rupture at any time, causing sudden death. Read More>>>

August 19, 2003
Twin refugees get a gift
Doctors attempting to correct clubfeet on 6-year-old girls
Kerry Fehr-Snyder
The Arizona Republic

Asmaa and her twin sister Hiba Abu-Shaar frolicked in a backyard swimming pool Monday, a day before undergoing surgery to correct botched operations on their clubfeet.

As refugees living in the Gaza Strip, the 6-year-olds have learned to walk, swim, even run with the deformed feet. Asmaa's left foot is so mangled with scar tissue that she walks completely on its side and cannot wear a shoe. Read More>>>

July 20, 2003
From the Middle East, for love
Boy shot in Gaza Strip finds medical help and homes to stay in
By MARINA TRAHAN MARTINEZ / The Dallas Morning News

Ahmad Zanoun's eyes became so swollen after four hours of neurosurgery that he couldn't see.
But he could hop out of bed and pretend to get a call from his dad on his toy cellular phone.
"How are you?" he asked in Arabic. "I had an operation and I can get up and walk," he said into the phone. Then, to his mother: "He hung up on me. The calling card ran out." Read More>>>

April 4, 2003
Toddler Heart Patient Healed
By Joann Kelly
The Northern Virginia Journal
 
Randa Hammami beams as she watches her child, Ahmed, play in the warm April sun outside the Ronald McDonald House in Washington.
 
The odyssey that took her from Nablus, her hometown in the West Bank, to this northeast District neighborhood has already repaid her for all her troubles.
 
It's been three weeks since 14-month-old Ahmed underwent open heart surgery at the nearby Children's National Medical Center, and he already is a changed boy. Read More>>>

March 6, 2003
Saving A Heart
By Jennifer Ryan

This mother risked her life trying to cross from the Palestinian territories into Isreal with her toddler and her sister. They made it through four checkpoints where people were beaten and turned away. At the last second when they were turned away, they found a man to sneak them in.

Her child has common congenital defects called Tetralogy of Fallot. Almost all American children are saved with surgery, but in developing countries the heart defect is a death sentence.

It has been a long and dangerous journey to get 13-month-old Ahmed to Children's National Medical Center where doctors agreed to repair four life-threatening defects in his heart.

Ahmed is from the West Bank where poverty and conflict are plentiful - and pediatric surgery facilities are non-existant in Palestinian territories. A month ago, with the help of four humanitarian organizations, including Save A Child's Heart and the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, Randa Hammami left behind her husband and four other children to get Ahmed help. Read More>>>

March 4, 2003
Palestinian Boy Gets Hope
By Joann Kelly
The Northern Virginia Journal

Thirteen-month-old Ahmed Hammami sits quietly on a table at the Ronald McDonald House near Children's National Medical Center in Washington, his large, brown eyes gazing thoughtfull about the room.

Snow is falling outside and the Palestinian boy's mother watches nearby as Daniel Quinn, an Arlington County social worker, spoon-feeds him from a jar of baby food.

After several weeks of battling the flu, Ahmed is healthy and doctors are saying they will be able to fix his heart -- and save his life -- if he remains well enough to undergo surgery on Friday. Read More>>>

He is a Palestinian boy, 14 years old and going on 40, brought to Arizona by mercy workers to have the slug removed. But right now he is having dinner in a north Phoenix restaurant and telling the story in matter-of-fact terms with neither trembling nor tears. Ahmed says he was walking home from his grandparents' house in Gaza on Oct. 28, 2000, passing by a Jewish settlement that was separated from the Palestinian zone by barbed wire. Up ahead, he noticed some other boys throwing rocks at Israeli houses. Ahmed says he climbed onto a stone wall to see better, and one of the boys shouted, "Get down! Get down! They're shooting!" Read More
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Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Witness to bloodshed
Former area resident: West Bank violence 'unimaginable'
By NATE REENS
Staff writer

"Just got out of Ramallah yesterday, managed to catch a ride to the checkpoint with the Associated Press in their bulletproof vehicle, then walked across with a few bullet-proof vested/helmeted journalists, me in my scrubs."
---- Lynn Gras, in an e-mail after she left the battle-torn Palestinian city earlier this month. Read More

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Friday, March 15, 2002
U. of C. doctors fix Palestine girl’s heart
By Amy E. Nevala
Tribune staff reporter

The successful heart surgery on a 3-year-old Palestinian girl in the University of Chicago Hospitals resonated on Thursday with their family, so accustomed to the hardships of war.

Malak Dawood is expected to return to her West Bank village later this month after doctors sealed four pea-sized holes in her heart. Palestinian doctors told the family they were ill equipped to perform the surgery, prompting a U.S.-based charity group to fly her to Chicago.

The University of Chicago Hospitals covered the cost of the procedure, about $80,000.

“They got a chance, a little light,” said Khawla Abdelrazeq, a volunteer with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. “It’s not easy for them, so this is something positive.”

Their Palestinian mountain village has no hospital, and driving to the closest medical facility can take up to three hours, she said. Twice as they attempted to drive to the airport to fly to Chicago they were turned back by Israeli soldiers.

Malak’s 21-year-old mother Eman, also has a newborn daughter. Malak’s father, a formers school bus driver, is not working. He was arrested earlier this week by Israeli soldiers and held for 12 hours before his release, Abdelrazeq said.

Still, Dawood calls her daughter lucky. For every ill child like Malak treated in a U.S. or European hospital, another five in the Middle East may go without life-saving medical attention, said Abdelrazeq.

Malak’s rare defect, known as Swiss cheese septum for the holes between her heart ventricles, forced damaging blood levels into her lungs.

On Monday, the hospital’s chief of pediatric cardiology, Dr. Ziyad M. Hijazi, guided a wire with umbrella-shaped synthetic patches through a catheter into the aortic artery leading to her heart’s left ventricle.

Positioning the patches in the holes stopped the flow of blood in the right ventricle, allowing her heart to pump normally.

Two days later, a surgeon removed a band around her pulmonary artery that Jordanian doctors had inserted when she was a few months old to lesson the flow of blood into her lungs.

Malak’s disorder affects only about 3,000 children worldwide, said University of Chicago Hospitals surgeon Dr. Emile Bacha.

If all goes well with Malak’s recovery, Bacha said they could return to their West Bank home within a few weeks.

Dawood said that her first trip to the United States has been “happy”, and her daughter’s successful surgery “a big relief”.

December 30, 2001