BBC joins wounded Gazan children when they arrive in Jordan

We flew through the warm light from the setting sun. There were villages and small towns where the lights came. It was a peaceful landscape where people walked and drove without constantly looking at heaven.

We were over the suburbs of Amman when Safa’a Salha held up her cell phone so that I could read a message she had written.

“Oh my God,” wrote this Gaza mother, “Jordan is so beautiful.”

The evacués had come by road to the Jordanian border. I came to them there for the last part of the trip by helicopter to Amman.

Safa’a spoke very little English, and at least the sound of the helicopter made it impossible to talk.

She showed me another message. “We used to see this every day (helicopter) and it came to bomb and kill. But today the feeling is completely different.”

Next to her was her 16-year-old son Youssef who showed me the scar on his head of his last operation. He smiled and wanted to speak, not about Gaza but ordinary things. How he was excited by the helicopter, how he loved football. Youssef said he was very happy and gave me a fist bump.

Nine -year -old Sama Awad, Broos and Bang was looking next to him and held the hand of her mother, Isra. Sama has a brain tumor and will undergo surgery at Amman.

“I hope she can get the best treatment here,” said Isra, when we were on the ground and faded the sound of the engines.

I asked a question that was often answered for me by looking at images, but not personally by someone who had just left.

How is Gaza now?

“It’s terrible. It is impossible to describe. On so many levels. But people just try to continue with life,” Isra replied.

Four sick children were evacuated to Jordan together with twelve parents and guardians. They left Gaza this morning by ambulance and traveled through Israel without stopping until they reached the border crossing.

The plan to evacuate children was revealed for the first time during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and the King Hussein of Jordan in February.

Jordan’s goal is to bring 2,000 sick children to the kingdom for treatment. So far, only 33 have been evacuated to Jordan, each of whom traveling with a parent or guardian.

Jordanian sources say that Israel has delayed and imposed restrictions – together with the resumption of the war – has impeded the evacuation process. Sick Gazans have also been evacuated to other countries via Israel.

We have held Jordanian concern for the Israeli government organization responsible – Cogat (coordinator of government activities in the areas) – who told us that since “the beginning of the year, and especially in recent weeks, there has been a significant increase in the number of Gazans evacuated by Israel for medical care.”

Cogat said that thousands of patients and escorts had gone to countries, including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, the US and others. The statement said that “the current hostilities in the Gaza Strip are a challenge for the implementation of this evacuation operations.”

Israël broke the last -the -Fires in March and launched a wave of attacks on what it said that Hamas were positions.

Gaza remains a claustrophobic zone of hunger and death for its inhabitants. Those who get out for medical treatment are the exception.

According to the UN, the population of 2.1 million is confronted with the risk of famine. The head of humanitarian affairs of the organization, Tom Fletcher, has appealed to the UN Security Council to act to prevent “genocide” in Gaza.

These are strong words for a man who has been trained in the sober traditions of the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs and who served as ambassador and senior government adviser.

The Israeli blockade prevents essential aid supplies from reaching the population. That together with the constant bombing explains the description of Isra Abu Jame of a place that is terribly outside the words.

The children who arrived from Gaza on Wednesday in Jordan will join a small community of other wounded and sick young people in various Amman hospitals.

Since January we have been following the case of Habiba Al -Ascari, who came with her mother Rana in the Hope doctors who may save three gangrene -infected limbs -two arms and a leg.

But the infection – caused by a rare skin condition – had gone too far. Habiba underwent a triple amputation.

When I met Habiba and Rana again this week, the little girl used the toes of her remaining foot to scroll and played for children’s games on her mother’s phone. She blew kisses with the stump of her arm. This was a completely different child than the frightened girl I met on the helicopter evacuation five months ago.

“She is a strong person,” said Rana. Habiba will be equipped with prosthetic limbs. She is already determined to walk and asks her mother to hold under her armpits while she jumps.

One day, Rana hopes, she takes Habiba back to Gaza. Mother and child are safe and well cared for in Amman, but their whole world, their families and neighbors are back in the ruins. Concerns about Habiba’s health makes Rana reluctant to consider quickly.

“We don’t have a house. If we want to go back, where do we go? We would go back to a tent full of sand … (but) I really want to return. Gaza is beautiful, despite everything that happened. For me, Gaza will always be the most precious place on this whole earth.”

They will return. But against war or peace? Nobody knows.

With additional reporting by Alice Doidard, Suha Kawar, Nikh Millard and Federal Federal.