Majd Alshaghnobi was waiting to collect flour, like so many children in northern Gaza, when Israeli shrapnel tore through his face in February 2024, inflicting a blast injury on his jaw and lower mouth.
“Someone had dragged me and took me to safety,” the 15 year old told CNN.
Palestinian doctors whisked him away before sewing up his wounds in a kitchen because there were not enough operating rooms at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City — in a scene of improvisation replicated across the strip. Majd then trekked alone through razed neighborhoods and military checkpoints before reuniting with his mother in the southern city of Khan Younis.
In July, he became the third child from Gaza to enter the United Kingdom in a private medical evacuation facilitated by the NGO Project Pure Hope, with support from the non-profit Gaza Kinder Relief.
From the morgue to the operating room: Majd’s fight to smile again
Five months prior, Majd had left the enclave through Egypt with his mother, Islam Felfel, his younger brother, Nader, 10, and his sister, Rahaf, 7, during a ceasefire.
On Tuesday, Majd underwent facial reconstruction surgery in London, days after the British government announced a scheme to facilitate the safe arrival of ill children from Gaza.
But relief and medical workers say it is not enough — warning that Majd’s ordeal offers a rare insight into the horrors of Israel’s war for children in Gaza. More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured, according to the UN’s children’s agency.
Read more about Majd and the plight of children in Gaza.