Mother of sick child in Gaza calls for ceasefire

Mother of sick child in Gaza calls for ceasefire

In one of the last functioning hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Tamara Al-Maarouf's eyes fill with tears as she stands helplessly at the bedside of her 4-month-old son. A tumor, now removed, had compressed his small heart and the boy urgently needs treatment abroad.

The tragedy of innocent lives

Meanwhile, 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz, who was abducted by Hamas militants from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 last year, remains held captive in Hamas-controlled territory. His family is desperately fighting for his return.

The stories of these two people - a Palestinian infant and an elderly Israeli - tell of the countless innocent lives trapped in a war they did not choose. Their fates are now entangled in politics and negotiations that have all but failed.

Urgent treatment needs in the Gaza Strip

Little Jihad can barely breathe or eat. His mother, Tamara, desperately tries to comfort him as he cries and writhes with tubes in his mouth and nose. How thousands of other patients in Gaza, he needs urgent medical help from abroad, but those evacuations have come to a virtual standstill since May, when Israel took control of the Rafah crossing.

The Israeli authorities have only a fraction of that an estimated 12,000 Palestinians, who are waiting to be transferred - many of them children - from Gaza admitted for treatment.

The devastating health crisis

More than a year of devastating Israeli airstrikes and the associated siege in the area have hit the health sector hard. Medical professionals are hardly able to save lives. Hospitals are overwhelmed by the conflict's injured, while at the same time facing preventable diseases that are increasing at an alarming rate.

In August there was one 11 month old boy as the first patient in Gaza to be diagnosed with polio in 25 years after Israel's military crackdown destroyed water and sewage systems, leading to a resurgence of the deadly disease.

International relief efforts

In September, the World Health Organization administered the first of two doses of the polio vaccine to more than half a million children under 10 in Gaza. The second round of the emergency vaccination campaign is already underway, according to the UN children's agency UNICEF. The UN reported that Vaccinations at a school that was being used as an emergency shelter after it was damaged in an Israeli airstrike.

There are numerous other children like Jihad who suffer from serious illnesses, chronic illnesses and cancer and cannot receive adequate treatment in Gaza.

A desperate appeal to the world

Doctors at Nasser Hospital in Gaza told CNN that neither specialists nor the necessary equipment were available to properly diagnose and treat Jihad. So they had no choice but to remove the tumor to relieve pressure on his heart, despite the risks.

Before her son's operation, Tamara Al-Maarouf couldn't hold back her tears and pleaded with the international community for help: "These are children, they don't carry weapons," she told CNN. “Why can’t he be evacuated?”

Hopes for a return

Against all odds, the little Jihad survived the operation. But doctors were unable to completely remove the tumor, his mother told CNN last week. A month after surgery, he continues to experience weight loss, diarrhea, fever and loss of appetite, she said.

Thousands of miles away, at her home in London, Sharone Lifschitz flipped through black-and-white photos stored on her phone while speaking to CNN last month. She beamed with pride as she pointed to an old picture of her mother, Yocheved Lifschitz, with a sign that read “Shalom,” meaning peace, in Hebrew.

Her parents were long-time advocates of peace. In recent years, the elderly couple was part of a volunteer group of Israelis who drove Gazans from the border to hospitals in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Her father, Oded Lifschitz, kept his driver's license so he could continue those missions, she said.

A family secret and loss

"My father believed in thinking big and solving the hard problem... He was very much in favor of the two-state solution," Lifschitz told CNN. “He believed that we could reach agreements with the Palestinians.” On the morning of October 7 last year, Oded and Yocheved were kidnapped from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz, the scene of one of the worst massacres in that day's Hamas attack.

Yocheved, now 86, was kidnapped in her nightgown, thrown onto a motorcycle and taken to Gaza. At the end of October she was released by Hamas on humanitarian grounds.

The search for peace

The last time Yocheved saw her husband more than 60 years ago was on October 7th. He lay injured on the ground after being shot in the hand by the militants who broke into their home. “He survived and his spirit survived,” her daughter told CNN. “We know that he was looking for my mother on the first day,” she said, citing testimony from the ranks of the released hostages. "We know that he helped the other hostages he shared a room with. My father was a very helpful, kind and generous man."

It is this kindness and generosity, as well as his ability to speak Arabic, that family members hope helped a frail, elderly man with health problems survive in captivity.

They have been waiting for his return for over a year now. In May, Oded turned 84 while held captive by Hamas.

Lifschitz wears a dog tag collar with a photo of her father engraved with “84” and the message: “Waiting for you at home.” “Hamas kidnapped elderly people, they didn’t need them and could have given them back without a deal,” Lifschitz said. "It doesn't take a deal to bring back an 84-year-old man. It doesn't take a deal to bring back a 1-year-old baby. The fact that Hamas is using them to get a deal is terrible."

The path to an agreement

But Lifschitz, like many Israelis, continues to believe that the only way out of this nightmare is an agreement between Israel and Hamas that could end the war and secure the release of the hostages. She fears that they will lose in the race against time to bring their loved ones back alive.

“We are so exhausted and so broken, over and over again,” Sharone said. "We're not giving up. We don't have the luxury of giving up."

The desperate situation of the population

Hopes for a ceasefire agreement and the release of hostages have repeatedly been dashed by failed negotiations. Both Israel and Hamas blame each other for the failed efforts, while mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt try to salvage talks that have been stalled for months.

In July, a deal appeared to be within reach, but sources told CNN that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's final demands had undermined the agreement and created obstacles. U.S. officials have since blamed both Israel and Hamas for adding additional conditions that stalled the talks. Families of hostages have repeatedly accused Netanyahu of deliberately prolonging the war and torpedoing agreements to achieve his own political advantage.

Hanging in the balance are the lives of more than 100 Israeli hostages and Gaza's 2.2 million residents, all trapped in a besieged area described by aid groups as "hell on earth" as they appeal for a ceasefire to save lives.

The slow death under the siege

Those who survived Israel's bombardment, which Palestinian authorities say has killed more than 42,000 people, face what Gazans like Al-Maarouf describe as slow deaths under siege as the situation grows more catastrophic by the day.

“He is a child who has nothing to do with what happened,” the distraught mother told CNN last month. “What did a 4 month old baby do?”

Urgent appeal to the international community

Lifschitz believes mediators could do more to reach an agreement. She wants Egypt and Qatar to put more pressure on Hamas, but for her it is US President Joe Biden who could make this deal happen. "I believe it is President Biden who must do everything at this moment to bring them home... I believe he is our best hope," she said.

Lifshitz refuses to compare her own government's position with that of a militant group like Hamas, but explained: "Anyone who is interested in history sees people caught in the tide of time and political and military fanatical governments that put their own agenda above human lives...Both nations are indeed extremely unhappy with the leadership that is currently leading them.

The urgent situation of the hostages

For Israelis like Lifshitz, the race to save the lives of their loved ones came to an end in early September after the Israeli military the bodies of six hostages brought back those who had been executed by Hamas, made more urgent. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that they were "brutally" murdered "a short time" before Israeli troops were able to reach them. Hamas, in turn, issued a chilling threat that more hostages would return in coffins if Israeli troops tried to free them.

Three of the six hostages were taken by Israeli authorities expects to be released under a future ceasefire agreement. “These were young people who had every chance of survival, and they survived for almost a year,” said an emotionally shaken Lifschitz. "It's a failure; we let them down."

The families of the hostages fear for the safety of their loved ones, not only in relation to their captors, but also in relation to Israel's military operations, especially the incessant bombings that razed much of Gaza to the ground have.

Future hopes and struggles

Last month, the IDF confirmed that three hostages whose bodies were recovered in December had "most likely" been killed in an Israeli attack. The military had previously admitted it was accidental three other hostages killed to have and explained that it was the circumstances of the Death of six hostages, whose bodies were recovered in June, are being investigated.

While the prospects for a deal appear bleak, Lifschitz said she would not give up fighting for the release of her father and the other hostages. Asked what she would say to her father if he could hear her, Lifschitz replied in a thick voice: "Forgive us. Forgive us. We tried so hard. And know that we hear your voice in our heads... You know, we tried in the way he tried all his life. He tried for many years to avert this disaster.

"I hear him now saying: 'Work for peace, work for the possibility that people in this region can live together,'" she added.