Surgeon from UAE heals Gaza children deaf from Israeli bombings

PNN
Wafa Sarhan was devastated to think her two sons would never hear her voice again after an Israeli strike on Gaza left them deaf.

...Bahaa and Qusei Sarhan, today six and five, lost their hearing in June 2004 when an Israeli drone fired missiles near their home in the northern town of Jabaliya.

"Bahaa was wounded again by shrapnel during the last war (in December and January) because there was shelling and he couldn't hear us yelling at him to come inside," she says.

Since the boys lost their hearing, Wafa Sarhan and her husband have been trying to get them treated outside the coastal strip, which is under Israeli siege.

They heard of a procedure under which a device dubbed an electronic "snail" is inserted in the ear, enabling a person to regain his hearing.

But the only place in the Arab world where the procedure is available is a medical centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which charges 60,000 dollars (40,000 euros) for the operation.

"If we gave them everything we own it would not cover a fourth of the price," she said.

Then, last week, Mazen al-Hajeri, a doctor from the UAE specialising in the procedure, showed up to do a string of the operations for free in the Gaza Strip, where scores of children have lost their hearing as a result of Israeli operations over the years.

...Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas's win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter’ siege had already existed before.

Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”

...Israel's war on Gaza killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and wounded 5,450 others.

Among the dead were 437 children, 110 women, 123 elderly men, 14 medics and four journalists.

The wounded include 1,890 children.

The war also left tens of thousands of houses destroyed, while their residents remained homeless. Full story