The Swiss doctor treating badly injured Gazan children

Yousef is 18 years old. Nowadays, he goes to a school in Geneva – but he grew up in Gaza, in the Nousairat camp near Khan Younis. 

In November 2023, he was queuing for water in the Nousairat camp, when he was severely injured by a missile explosion. The missile hit a house near where Yousef was standing and immediately he was buried under the rubble. 

He was found alive but with his bones fractured and he was badly burnt. He was taken to an emergency hospital in Gaza, but the doctors had to amputate his left leg and remove his kidney.

The hospital Yousef was in came under a missile attack and he had to be evacuated to Egypt. But because of his operation he couldn't eat independently, so he was fed via a tube and was sick a lot.

It was around this time when Dr Raouf Salti, a Geneva-based urologist, was working on bringing Gaza's sick and injured children for treatment in Switzerland through his NGO, Children's Right for Healthcare. 

Dr Salti has carried out many humanitarian missions in Palestine and he was in Gaza in October 2023 to treat children. But Gaza was closed by then – so he decided to try to bring the children to Geneva. 

He asked a colleague in Gaza to draw up a list of badly injured patients. The list included more than 200 children, but financial and visa restrictions meant they couldn't all be helped. 

'Feels empty without my family' 

Dr Salti was forced to choose 16 children – but even of those, they could only locate eight, as the rest were either killed or buried under the rubble.

Yousef was one of the eight children, brought to Geneva with his mother. He was 17 years old at the time. He now has an artificial leg, but he is waiting for an operation on his knee which would enable him to walk.

He goes to a normal school in Geneva and is learning French. He hopes to go to a university in Geneva but he says that he misses his family the most. 

"Geneva is beautiful, but the land without the family is empty," he says. "This is my only problem, which is that as long as my family is not around me, I am not comfortable in life." 

He is also waiting on a humanitarian visa that would allow for some of his family members to come to Switzerland too.

Dr Salti says he is hoping to bring more children to Geneva for treatment and his NGO is waiting for a green light from the Swiss authorities.