Global Black Voices: News from around the World
Dr. Seema Jilani is a pediatrician who has been providing medical care to children in Gaza.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
According to the U.N., Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita of anywhere in the world. Pediatrician Seema Jilani has treated some of them. She traveled to Gaza at the start of the war. Since then, she has been working with a group called the International Network for Aid Relief and Assistance, or INARA. On a recent trip to Cairo to visit evacuated patients, she sent us voice notes. And a warning – the following includes descriptions of violence and suffering.
SEEMA JILANI: When I was in Gaza this last time, it felt as if we were witnessing total nightmare scenes.
Just crowds and crowds of people next to each other – a boy with massive burns can’t open his eyes, double amputee.
Whether it’s holding people in my arms as they are dying, whether it is charred and burnt children.
He’s 4 years old?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JILANI: OK. And this was from yesterday’s…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah.
JILANI: …Explosion? And fluids – no fluids to give?
Whether it is amputated children without access to pain medicine, to basic human dignity.
And no parents anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
JILANI: I’m so sorry. Inshallah.
(Non-English language spoken).
Inshallah. We will pray. Inshallah.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JILANI: As I exited Gaza and went to Cairo and was washing, you know, blood off of my scrubs and getting on phones and briefing people, trying to convey that was really met with not even apathy, but I remember trying to contort my words. What word salad could I put together? What recipe will make these people care?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JILANI: I traveled with Arwa Damon, who founded INARA, to visit Gazan refugees in Cairo. And we did hospital visits with children who are still undergoing multiple surgeries from bombardment-related injuries, including amputations.
Tell me about who we’re going to see.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: So she’s Marima Boussnina (ph). She’s a 3 1/2- or 4-year-old girl. She suffered from an explosive injury that led to a severe injury in her right forearm.
JILANI: So Mira (ph) is a beautiful, lively, sweet 3 1/2-year-old girl who was evacuated from Gaza. She is a survivor of a bombardment.
And so does she have movement and feeling?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yes.
JILANI: OK. She’s still…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: As far as I know, like…
JILANI: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: …She’s regaining it. And the sensation is better, I think.
JILANI: Is it right hand or left hand?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: The right.
JILANI: We evacuate her in an attempt to salvage her limb. And in fact, INARA was able to save her right arm. And when I saw her and visited her, she was just the most bubbly, happy, wanting to have social interaction…
Hello. Look at that big smile. OK, can I try mine?
MARIMA BOUSSNINA: (Vocalizing).
(LAUGHTER)
MARIMA: (Vocalizing).
JILANI: You know, we played for at least an hour.
MARIMA: (Vocalizing).
JILANI: Oh, yeah, we didn’t even look at that. Candy – you better take this.
MARIMA: (Vocalizing).
JILANI: Otherwise, I’ll eat it.
Well, I offered her candy. And there were five pieces of candy, and she offered it to everybody else.
For me? Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much.
And then I had to remind her, hey, Mira, don’t you want a piece of candy? And she said, oh, yes, I forgot. One for me, too.
JILANI: But what about you?
MARIMA: (Non-English language spoken).
JILANI: She wants only one, and…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: And gives you the rest.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: And giving everyone the…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: So she’s sharing the others.
JILANI: It was so healing for me even to see a child on the healing side ’cause I only have ever seen them on the other side.
And Mama (ph) did your hair, too?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Non-English language spoken).
JILANI: Here was Mom, 24 hours a day, you know, tasked with being her caretaker without any help. And she’s telling me her two siblings – who she constantly misses, and she was telling me, I miss them so much – and her father are dead. And I don’t even know if they got a dignified burial. And then there’s two other injured siblings of Mira’s that are still in Gaza. And the mother is completely shattered, right?
How old are they?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Eight and 5.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Eight and 5.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: They’re with their grandmother, and they’re injured and still not getting here.
JILANI: Half of her is still there. She still has two kids sitting in Gaza. And that’s the shadow of what Mira’s going to be thinking as she grows up, is she’s the one that got out whole.
MARIMA: (Vocalizing).
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JILANI: If I hear another person talk about the Palestinian people’s, quote-unquote, “resilience,” I think I might scream. People don’t want to be resilient. They don’t want to be forced into a struggle. They want to live a life of gentle sweetness and enjoy the joys that we all do. And it dissolves any modicum of the world being responsible to help them.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JILANI: I don’t have hope – capital H – anymore. I’m in a space of extraordinary rage. And I am trying, trying to channel that into some positivity. Otherwise, I’ll be just left completely deeply disturbed. And I hope other people feel the same – that they are disturbed seeing what they’re seeing, and they can’t just scroll by.
CHANG: That was pediatrician Dr. Seema Jilani.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Read the full story from the original publication
