In my talks on Gaza I, in additional to highlighting the sadistic top-down, eagerly-enforced policies of oppression, attacks on fishers and farmers and thus decimating their means of existence and that of the general population, I relate the horror of the 2008/9 massacre of Gaza, and the subsequent Nov 2012 massacre, and all of the mini-massacres that occur sporadically, without an end in sight.
Abdul Rahman Abu Oida is one of the thousands of Palestinians suffering life-altering injuries from any of the Jewish state’s many sadistic wars on Gaza (and attacks throughout occupied Palestine).
*Abed, 16, in a Cairo hospital in 2008.
I met Abed in mid 2008, in a Cairo hospital where he languished, emaciated and near death. His initial injury, a bullet to the spine which rendered him bed-ridden, had him sent to Cairo for care that Gaza couldn’t provide at the time of the Israeli massacre in Feb/Mar 2008. Since then, he has fluctuated between improving health, though still bed-ridden, and deteriorating health.
Last time I saw Abed in Gaza City’s Shifa hospital, in July 2009, he was suffering kidney complications, a result of his initial injury and subsequent deterioration in hospital.
In 2010, I wrote:
“Even now, two years since being shot in his spine by an Israeli sniper, Abed is suffering from various organ failures, let alone the fact that he will never walk again and that sitting in a wheelchair can only be done sparingly due to the pressure it puts on his broken spine.”
That was 3.5 years ago, and he’s only worse off now.
“Tuesdays’ Child,” from Ireland, updated me in 2012:
“Unfortunately, in Egypt and with his mum not allowed to visit even, he developed pressure sores to the bone, his infection was treated with IV gentamicin but at an adult dose too much for his weight, this knocked his kidneys and hearing out and why he now has only one kidney and is permanently deaf. We had an audiologist out to help with the deafness. Otherwise he is very weak.”
And just yesterday, Tuesdays’ Child updated me, relating a message from a Palestinian in Gaza:
“Abed has bad health situation last month , he is now in the hospital, his situation very critical he is in intensive care since four days suffering from the Kidney problems.”
[as an aside, re the general situation in Gaza, suffering, the Palestinian contact noted: "also me, I am not feel well this time really all of us depressed from all the situation around us. the general situation very hard and worse this time."]
For more on Abed and a glimpse of a few of the untold injured in Gaza, see:
injured: time doesn’t heal all wounds
Putting a name to Gaza’s injured
Piecing the Injured Back TogetherFiled under: gaza random