Gaza: 4-Year-Old Palestinian Girl Dreams of Playing and Running Again Despite Losing Her Leg

GAZA — Sitting beside her doll inside a displacement tent in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza, four-year-old Jumlat Dabban waits for a prosthetic leg that could let her walk, play, and run again. She lost her left leg in an Israeli strike on a nearby tent in May this year, an injury that has forced her into a life where even simple movement requires help.
The family was displaced by Israeli military operations in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, and has been living in a tent ever since. Jumlat’s mother, Rasha, carries her, combs her hair, and helps her move around. Jumlat has learned to drag herself across the sand using her hands, and sometimes tries to pull herself up by holding onto the tent’s bamboo poles. Rasha said that before she was injured, Jumlat “was an extremely active child who loved to play, but now so much of her childhood has been taken from her.” Recalling the May 11 strike, Rasha said they were an ordinary family having an ordinary day — they had eaten breakfast and were sitting in the tent when a direct Israeli strike hit the neighboring tent, and her daughter was injured and lost her leg.
Confined to the tent, Jumlat often looks at old photos on her father’s phone and lingers on one taken before her injury, when both her legs were intact. She has repeatedly asked her mother to “get her leg back” so she can play with her brother, still unable to fully grasp that the loss is permanent. “What did this child do to deserve this?” Rasha said. “Her only fault is that she is a girl living in Gaza.”
Jumlat’s case is one of thousands among Palestinians who have lost limbs to amputation amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. According to Gaza’s Artificial Limbs and Polio Rehabilitation Center, the Ministry of Health has recorded more than 6,000 such cases, roughly 25% of them children. Officials say the blockade has severely limited the availability of prosthetics and rehabilitation supplies, and the UN says only about 300 prosthetic limbs have been delivered to Gaza since December 2025, despite urgent need.