FOR five-year-old Marya Aman and her father Hamdi, the respiratory ward of Alyn hospital in Jerusalem has become a prison and her terrible injuries a life sentence.
Paralysed from the neck down when an Israeli missile destroyed her family’s car in Gaza last May, the Palestinian girl is caught in a dilemma that only the tortured politics of the Middle East could have contrived.
She cannot leave the Israeli hospital where her father tends her round the clock — feeding her, bathing her and changing her catheters — because she has nowhere to go within reach of the medical care she needs.
Her 29-year-old father cannot leave without risking automatic deportation to Gaza and separation from his child.
He has a permit to be with his daughter but no other rights in Israel so he will not go for a stroll outside the hospital, let alone pop out for a coffee, for fear of being arrested. He has no money. Without the help of kind-hearted Israelis, he would have gone hungry.
“This little girl is my heart. I’ll live the rest of my life for her. But what if something happens to me? Israel must take some responsibility for her,” he said.
Marya was singing an Arab song in the packed white Mit-subishi saloon carrying eight members of her family to see a sick relative when disaster struck.
An Israeli helicopter was hunting a leader of the Islamic Jihad group whose car was speeding towards the Amans’ on the opposite side of a dual carriage-way. The guided missile killed the militant and devastated the Amans.
Marya’s mother Naima, 28, who was sitting in the front, died instantly. Her brother Muaman, 3, had been sleeping in his mother’s arms and was injured.
Her grandmother, sitting next to her in the back, was crushed beyond recognition. Her elder brother Muhand, who was next to his father, was also killed. Marya’s father was injured. One uncle was injured, another killed.
“At first I didn’t understand what was going on,” her father said. “I was screaming, ‘What’s happened? What’s happened?’ There was no reply.
“The first thing I noticed was that the street suddenly seemed empty and silent. Then I felt someone leaning on me. It was my dead mother.
“Her skull was smashed and I began to shout, ‘Mum, mum, wake up!’ In a panic I pushed her brain with my hands, trying to squeeze it back into her skull.
“I couldn’t get out of the car at first because the door was warped but eventually I crawled out and looked inside. I saw my dead wife. The others were dead or injured. Only then did I notice that Marya was not there.”
His daughter had been thrown from the car and was already being taken to hospital.
Sitting in her motorised wheel-chair last week, Marya recalled her final moments of happiness with her family.
“I remember very well,” she said, smiling shyly. “I was dancing and singing. Then the missile came.”
Her father explains that although she knows exactly what happened, she does not talk about it much. He has been astounded by how quickly she has adapted. “Allah took her body but gave her double brain power,” he said.
Marya has already mastered Hebrew and learnt to operate her special chair in one session. She speaks with the maturity of a girl twice her age and has embraced the opportunity of improvised school lessons on her ward.
The high point of each day is now a telephone conversation with her young brother back in Gaza. Muaman was also thrown from the car but got up and ran away, traumatised.
“Marya spends hours talking to her younger brother,” their father said. “Her happiest day was when he was allowed to visit her.”
At night Aman lies on the floor next to his daughter’s bed, even though he is still recovering from his own injuries. He has no room, no privacy and nowhere else to stay. “We admire him,” said an Israeli nurse on the ward. “We’ve seen a lot of devoted parents here. But Hamdi is exceptional.”
Marya’s spine was fractured, both lungs were punctured and she is confined to the chair, which is operated by a mouth-stick. She needs equipment, care and somewhere to live near the hospital for the rest of her life.
“I’m not asking the Israeli government for compensation for my late wife,” her father said. “I’m only asking that they take care of Marya as I won’t be around for ever.”
The Israeli defence ministry, however, has refused to meet the cost of a lifetime’s care which has been estimated at £10,000 a month — millions in all.
Adi Lustigman, a young Jerusalem lawyer, has taken up her case.
“If we don’t receive a proper answer, in the next couple of days we’re going to appeal to the High Court to force the defence ministry to take Marya’s case seriously,” she said.
In the meantime, Marya and her father are trapped. In her room, packed with visitors’ gifts, Marya does not ask to return to Gaza. She is bright enough to realise that there are no facilities to look after her there. And even if she did go home, her mother would not be waiting for her.
Readers wishing to help should send a cheque made out to Marya Aman to Foreign Desk, The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST and we will ensure the money reaches her bank account safely
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