Gaza Herald _At just three years old, Palestinian child Misk Abu Ma’aza should have been spending her days playing, laughing and discovering the world around her. Instead, an Israeli strike near her family’s home in the Gaza Strip in December 2025 left her with severe burns and injuries that have transformed every part of her young life.
Today, Misk lives with the lasting effects of those injuries under conditions that make recovery even more difficult. Rising temperatures have intensified her suffering, while her family struggles to obtain the medicines, ointments and treatment she needs. Her only hope for the specialized surgeries and care required is to leave Gaza and receive treatment abroad.
Her mother, Samar Abu Ma’aza, recalls how different her daughter’s life was before the attack.
Misk was an ordinary child who played, spoke, heard and communicated like other children her age. After the bombing, however, her ability to speak and hear was severely affected. She also became increasingly distressed, often expressing her needs through crying and screaming rather than the normal communication she once had.
Samar says doctors are prepared to treat her daughter, but the family is waiting for permission for Misk to leave Gaza because the necessary medical capabilities are unavailable inside the Strip.
“I appeal to the whole world,” Samar says. “My daughter needs to travel and receive treatment. It is her basic right.”
For her mother, the struggle is not only about treating physical injuries. It is about giving Misk back a part of the childhood she lost.
Samar says Gaza can no longer provide many children with the medical care and protection they need. Years of war, destruction and displacement have left deep psychological and physical scars on children across the Strip.
She is also calling for sick and injured children to be allowed to leave Gaza for treatment.
“I am telling all the children of Gaza: let them leave, let them travel, let them receive treatment,” she says. “They have seen enough. What they have been through is truly exhausting.”
A Childhood Burdened by War
Misk’s story is one among thousands of children in Gaza whose childhoods have been reshaped by war. Children across the Strip have faced severe injuries, the loss of parents, repeated displacement and deteriorating health and living conditions.
According to figures cited in health and United Nations reporting for 2026, more than 21,000 children have been killed and more than 45,000 injured, while around 1,000 children are living with limb amputations resulting from the violence.
The same data estimates that around 60,000 children have lost one or both parents, while the vast majority of children in Gaza have experienced forced displacement amid worsening environmental and health conditions.
More than one million children in the Strip are also in urgent need of mental health and psychosocial support, as shortages of clean water, sanitation and food compound the humanitarian crisis and expose children to diseases linked to the collapse of basic infrastructure.
Yet behind these staggering figures is a three-year-old girl waiting for a chance to heal.
Misk is waiting for a way out of Gaza, not in search of a different life, but simply for access to the treatment she needs. She needs surgeries, rehabilitation and specialized care that could help her regain some of her ability to speak and hear, and perhaps return, even partially, to the simple things every child should be able to do: play, communicate and live without constant pain.
Her mother is asking for one thing: for the world to hear the voice of a mother watching her child suffer, and to give Misk the basic right to receive the treatment she needs before her wait becomes even longer.
