Injured Gaza girls make it to Italy for treatment after long wait

Zeina was joined by Alaa, a 17-year-old who was severely injured in an air strike on her home in Gaza City late last year. When the two girls met, they formed a bond straight away.

“I took to her immediately,” Alaa says. “She’s endured so much pain for such a small child. I’m older and sometimes the pain was too much for me. So what about her?”

Alaa was trapped for 16 hours under rubble and, when she was rescued, she discovered her father, a tailor, was dead. So too were her brothers, Nael, who was a university student, and Wael, a nurse.

Their bodies have never been recovered from the ruins of their four-storey building.

“I was awake the whole time under the rubble,” she tells me.

“I couldn’t breathe properly because of the weight on my chest and body. I couldn’t move. I was just thinking about the rest of my family and what had happened to them.”

As well as her father and brothers, she also lost her grandparents and an aunt. She says they had nothing to do with Hamas.

“I lost the people most precious to my heart,” she says. “I’m happy to be in Italy for treatment but inside I’m sad for Gaza and its people.”

In a statement to the BBC, the Israel Defense Forces has denied targeting civilians and says it takes “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm” in its operation to dismantle Hamas military capabilities.

More than 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began nearly a year ago, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.