The child Muhammad Shaaban (9 years old) is feeling the wall of his room as he walks to reach the door of his house located in the city of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, with an area of ​​80 meters, until the walls become his guide.
Muhammad lost his sight due to an injury during an Israeli bombardment in the last aggression on the Gaza Strip last May, and it lasted for 11 days.
Muhammad was injured when he was accompanied by his mother, who accompanied him to buy Eid clothes, before the occupation planes confiscated her joy on Eid and her child Muhammad.
His mother says to a national joural “We were walking in the street when the occupation planes bombed a motorcycle that was traveling next to us.”
She adds, embracing Muhammad: "We fell to the ground covered in our blood. I saw the place filled with smoke, then I got up screaming at Muhammad."
Umm Muhammad was silent as she lowered her head. She wandered in her mind to that moment when she witnessed the worst minutes of her life. Then she continued: “I did not imagine that Muhammad was alive.”
Those heavy minutes passed on Muhammad´s mother, who continued her speech with shy tears, saying: "They took my son to the Indonesian Hospital... I ran to the martyrs´ refrigerators, and there I was screaming with all my energy and calling for Muhammad."
And she continued, "I thank God that I did not find Muhammad there. He was lying on a bed in the reception department, and he was calling: Mama, Mama."
At this moment, tears flowed from Muhammad´s mother as she described the moment when she saw her child: "I hugged him quickly and told him: I´m here, Mama... I´m here, my love... I´m beside you, Mom."
The Israeli bombing caused the child Muhammad to lose his sight
His mother says: "The first thing Muhammad asked me about was: Where are my sandals, Mom? I had bought him two days before."
Silence prevailed in the place and the mother continued to wipe her tears, then leaned over her child and asked him: “What are you doing, Muhammad?” He answers innocently: “I go to school.”
Here, Muhammad´s father intervened and said, "His right as a child is to go to school like any child in the world."
Muhammad’s father, in an interview with the “Jerusalem Reporter,” describes that on the first day of the school year, he accompanied him to the hospital to complete the treatment, and there Muhammad asked him: “Oh, my brothers, are they going to school?”
And the mother continues: “The first day, Muhammad asked me to stand on the street to watch his brothers go to school.”
The child Muhammad traveled to the Republic of Egypt; For the installation of artificial eyes, he spent 3 months there, then returned two days ago to the Gaza Strip.
The mother comments on this: “Muhammad believes that these artificial eyes will restore his sight again.”
He appeals to his father that Muhammad take his rights as a child, and provide him with a decent life and an educational opportunity that takes into account his health condition, and demands that the leaders of the Israeli occupation be held accountable for their crime against childhood in Palestine, and the Gaza Strip in particular.
The child Mohammed dreams of returning to his school among his friends and colleagues, but now he feels lonely; He was unable to accompany his brothers, cousins, and neighbors´ children.
Muhammad says to a national journal in a low voice: “I want to have artificial eyes fitted to watch TV and go back to school.”
Muhammad is currently moving only with the help of one of his parents, and his life has completely changed, until his father said: “Muhammad sees life now in one color.”
Muhammad joins about 1948 persons with disabilities who were injured during the recent Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, including 610 children, according to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. While the number of martyrs of the 11-day aggression reached six, while 24 institutions concerned were damaged. their affairs.
Persons with disabilities in Palestine constitute 2.1% of the total population, distributed at 48% in the West Bank and 52% in the Gaza Strip.
