Getting prosthetic limbs from Jordan, Gazan teen amputees cling to their hopes

AMMAN, Jordan (AFP) — At 15 years old, Mahmoud Abou Nusair recalls the love he had for soccer, before alleged Israeli fire in Gaza took his leg and his dreams away.

He is one of more than 450 Palestinian amputees receiving care and prosthetic limbs at a center in Amman and in Gaza, part of an initiative run by Jordan’s Restoring Hope Society.

On October 31, 2025, during the ongoing Gaza ceasefire agreed that month, Abou Nusair says he was looking for firewood in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, when a bullet struck his right leg. The IDF asserts that it only opens fire on targets that threaten troops stationed in the Strip.

With Gaza’s healthcare system decimated after three years of war, Abou Nusair had to undergo an amputation below the knee after his injury worsened.

“The doctor came to see me and told me, ‘We have to amputate your foot,'” he told AFP. “My mother said, ‘No, doctor, that’s his soul. What will he do if he wants to go out, play soccer, skate or go to the beach? It’s a sin to cut off his foot.'”

“My first reaction was to scream,” he said. “Then I took a look at the injured people around me in the hospital. They all had amputated arms and legs, so I told myself: my injury is better. Then I said, ‘Amputate it, doctor.'”

After his injury, he recalls having to wait half an hour until a horse-drawn cart picked him up and took him to Al-Aqsa Hospital. He was taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where he spent two weeks.

He still mourns the loss of his sports equipment and his five balls, all of which he lost when his home was destroyed.

At the facility in Amman, Zuhdi Abou Shanab, 17, says he lost his entire right leg in a strike that allegedly killed nine people and injured 28 others on September 8, 2025.

“I was on my way to buy groceries for my mother and I ran into a friend so we stopped to talk,” he told AFP. “When they struck the building we were standing next to, I lost consciousness and when I woke up, I found myself wounded and bleeding.”

Israel says it strikes structures being used by terror operatives and seeks to minimize civilian harm, including by issuing warnings before strikes are carried out. The IDF has faced accusations that it allowed for significant collateral damage in such strikes, charges it has denied.

“A week later, the doctors told me that I was suffering from an infection in the artery in my leg and that three veins and three arteries in my leg had been severed,” Abou Shanab continued. “I underwent an operation to reattach the arteries and veins, but it failed, so they decided to amputate my leg.”

“The war has devastated us and torn us away from our friends… there is nothing left,” he added. But he still holds on to hope that his condition will improve, dreaming of “returning to Gaza.”

“I miss my mother, my brothers and my sisters,” he said.

Abdulrahman Rihan lost the use of his legs when his family home in Jabalia, northern Gaza was bombed, the morning of January 12, 2025.

Both he and his father suffered severe wounds. They were taken to multiple hospitals in Gaza, where they “underwent difficult and painful surgeries,” Abdulrahman recounted.

Three of his brothers were also wounded. Their father, Imad Rihan, 42, said he had to “undergo some surgeries without anesthetic in Gaza.”

“This war was very hard on us,” said the father, who lost his left leg. “No matter how much we talk about the war, or how much you have seen of it, all of this remains but a drop in the ocean compared to the reality that we witnessed with our own eyes.”