Nine-year old Mariam cupped her face in her hands as she smiled for a photo taken outside her house in Gaza more than a year ago.
Days later, on March 1, 2025, she was pulled from the rubble after her family home in Deir Al Balah was hit by Israeli shelling, with one arm missing.
Now, Mariam is the seventh child to be medically evacuated to the UK from Gaza for private healthcare treatment. She needs surgery for injuries sustained to her body and organs from the blast.
In pictures shared with The National before her arrival to the UK, she is holding up the bracelets she once wore on her arm while in recovery at Al Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in Gaza. After being evacuated to Egpyt, Mariam, now 10, is pictured in Cairo enjoying walks in the park, outings to restaurants and a day out at an indoor snow centre.
Mariam was found unresponsive in the rubble after a three-hour rescue operation. The staircase in her home had collapsed under her feet while she was running to her parents' room on a night of intense Israeli bombardment.
Surgeons at the hospital had believed they could save her arm and reconnect it to her body in a five-hour operation. For 10 days, the arm held, with almost full function restored. But complications developed soon after and, without the adequate medication or blood thinners available, doctors decided to amputate again.
Mariam was first evacuated to Egypt by Fajr Global, an American charity that had planned to take her to the US for treatment. But last August, the US stopped issuing visas to people from Gaza seeking medical treatment with their families.
The British charity Project Pure Hope (PPH), which campaigns for injured children to be brought from Gaza for specialist treatment, stepped in to bring Mariam to the UK. Another Palestinian child from the territory is also in the process of being evacuated.
There is currently no British visa regime to fast-track medical evacuations from Gaza. Patients must first be taken to Jordan or Egypt so that they can submit their biometric data and apply for a medical visa to the UK.
It is a process that takes weeks, whereas people injured in Gaza often need immediate care. PPH has long said it had raised the necessary funds to bring children to the UK for private health care.
The British government took in 50 injured children for National Health Service treatment last September, after more than a year and a half of campaigning by medical groups.
Many British Palestinians in the UK have told Prime Minister Keir Starmer they are ready to host overseas patients and their families, and take any burden on themselves.
Omar Din, co-founder of PPH, said the process of bringing children for treatment was “always a challenge” but was becoming “more straightforward” as the charity learnt how to navigate Home Office processes. “Now we’re experienced, we know more what we’re doing,” he said. "They [the Home Office] are not being difficult but I wouldn’t say its easy."
PPE is also supporting the treatment of 15 children who were evacuated to Jordan. Mr Din urged people in the UK not to forget the needs of people in Gaza, where a long-term peace plan has been stalled by the US-Israeli war with Iran.
“The world may believe the war in Gaza is over. It is not," he said. The bombs are still striking, and suffering continues. Children remain the most devastating casualties of this war – thousands of them still waiting, still in pain, still without access to the care that could change or save their lives.
Dr Mosab Nasser, chief executive of Fajr Global, added: “The need in Gaza remains enormous and urgent. We are committed to doing everything within our reach to meet it."
