Samar Hamdan, who fled from Jabaliya in northern Gaza Strip to Deir al- Balah in April when she was four months pregnant, was shocked when her baby girl Noor was born early with a congenital deformity.
“The doctors told me that my daughter has a good chance of survival, but she will live her life without hands and feet,” Hamdan told The Electronic Intifada.
Prosthetics are a medical possibility in the future, she said doctors had told her. They had also said that the likely cause of Noor’s congenital condition were weapons used in Israeli bombings, specifically white phosphorus.
“In the third month of pregnancy, I was exposed to gasses emitted from white phosphorus, which was heavily dropped on us in northern Gaza,” Hamdan said. “This is one of the reasons that may have caused the deformity, according to the attending doctor.”