Boy Discovers Hope and Help After Maiming in Gaza Strip

Like most children, Nizar el Barki enjoys riding bikes, tossing balls around and playing hide-and-seek. But unlike most children, he has only one hand, one leg, and no feet. When the 10-year-old plays outside, he gets around in a wheelchair. Indoors, he shuns the chair and powerfully maneuvers on the floor, using his his arm and leg, skirting around chairs and tables from room to room.

The round-faced boy with short, raven-colored hair and dark eyes was wounded last year during a bombing raid at his refugee-camp home in the Gaza Strip--a victim of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Nizar has been living with a Palestinian family in Baldwin Park since late September, waiting for treatment at Shriners’ Hospital for Crippled Children in Los Angeles.

He was interviewed on a recent muggy evening. Because he speaks little English, members of the family translated. Although he misses his own family, Nizar said, he is reluctant to return to Gaza because he fears Israeli soldiers.

“I don’t want to go back,” he said. “I want to stay here and finish school. After I finish school, I may go back--only to visit my mother and father.”

Nizar, the oldest of three children, says he cannot read or write because the schools in the occupied territories are often closed by the Israeli government when violence breaks out. Because of frequent curfews, he said, he mostly stayed indoors with his mother and rarely went to class.

“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” he said. “Maybe today a doctor, maybe tomorrow something else. I don’t know.”

Last October, Nizar was playing in the back yard of the Khan Yunis refugee camp, when an object fell from an Israeli helicopter and landed between his legs. Nizar said he thought it was a toy. But when he bent down to pick it up, there was an explosion. Witnesses said it was probably a grenade.

The next thing Nizar remembered, he was in a local hospital, his arm and leg amputated, his remaining foot only a stub. After almost three months in the hospital, the boy was sent to the Arab Bethlehem Rehabilitation Center, where he stayed for six months.

A Palestinian journalist told Steve Sosebee, 25, an American free-lance writer who has made a mission of bringing wounded Palestinians to this country for treatment, about the injured boy. Sosebee visited Nizar and later contacted the boy’s parents for permission to bring him to the United States.

Sosebee said he submitted applications to several children’s hospitals in the United States before the boy was accepted by the Shriners.

In September, Nizar boarded an airplane with Sosebee. Their first stop was in Ohio, where Sosebee lives. The boy was in pain, Sosebee recalled in a telephone interview, and an Ohio doctor performed minor surgery on what remains of his left foot.

“He had a scar . . . which stuck to a bad nerve, giving him severe phantom pain,” said Dr. Alif A. Kuri, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. “He thought the whole foot hurt. But he doesn’t have a foot. I removed the nerves out of the scar and buried them in softer tissue.”

Dr. Hugh Watts, assistant chief of staff at the Shriners hospital and an orthopedic surgeon, said the boy will have a screening visit first.

Saying he has only seen three photos of the limbs, Watts spoke of possible courses of treatment. “Presumably he can be fitted with an (artificial) arm and leg. But (what is left of his) foot looks like it has a lot of deformity just below the ankle joint. We may have to do surgery to straighten his foot so he can wear a shoe.”

Nizar may have to spend at least six years in this country, because he has to be trained to use the artificial limbs and may need regular adjustments, said Watts, who will perform the surgery.

The screening check is set for the second week of November, but actual treatment may not begin for three more months because of a long waiting list, a hospital representative said.

The Nurelddin family said Nizar can stay as long as necessary.

The family, who migrated from the West Bank to California in 1972, live in a simple three-bedroom stucco home. The mother, Adela, 42, is up every day at 5 a.m. for prayers. Then she fixes lunches for the eight children.

“We’re a large family, a loving family,” said her husband, Nijm, 44. “We can take care of an eighth, ninth, 12th child. It’s sometimes hard, but it’s a priority. We’re not rich, but we’re not poor, either. We make ends meet. Thank God. I wish I could help more.”

Nurelddin, a forklift operator at a Vons grocery warehouse in El Monte, said family life has not changed that much since Nizar arrived because all the children, ranging in age from 4 to 19, pitch in with household chores. And no one waits on Nizar, who feeds, bathes, and dresses himself. He generally refuses any help.

During the interview, the boy--dressed in white shorts and a colored T-shirt--sat in his wheelchair and volleyed a rubber ball with four of the Nurelddin children. When they brought out a toy ATV, Nizar climbed aboard and, using what remains of his left foot to pedal, sped down the street as the other children helped him.

Last Wednesday, Nizar went to school for the first time without fear. Dressed in a green shirt and blue pants and carrying a blue backpack full of pencils, he joined three of the Nurelddin children at Walnut School.

Along with regular math and science classes, Nizar will take penmanship, reading and English as a Second Language, said his fifth-grade teacher, Tracey Kraft.

Nizar’s fellow-students seemed eager to help out. Alexza Armendariz, 11, frequently leaned over and helped Nizar as he struggled to copy the word “swollen” from the blackboard. During math, she helped the boy add fractions.

“I wanted him to feel at home,” Armendariz said.

At 11:45 a.m., class broke for lunch. Nizar, carrying a red lunch box, was the last one out of the classroom. Several students were hanging around outside, staring, as Nizar--the only student at the school in a wheelchair--hurried to the lunchroom.

“It’s a new experience for them,” said Kraft, who has taught at the Baldwin Park school for six years. “I talked to my class about the differences, but some classes weren’t aware that he was coming.”

“I feel good that I went to school today,” Nizar said afterward. “I like school because they will teach me how to read and write. I want to stay here, so I can finish school.”

Sosebee said the next step is to raise money for Nizar who, he said, “will never be able to support himself” as a physical laborer. “He needs an education to be able to find a job using his mind.” The writer said he hopes to raise $15,000 to put in a trust fund for Nizar’s college education.

Sosebee said he first became interested in the plight of Palestinians while attending Kent State University. About three years ago, he and nine other students went to the occupied territories for three weeks as part of a human rights delegation.

Sosebee said he was horrified at the number of Palestinian civilians who had been shot, or beaten, by Israeli soldiers. When he returned home, he decided to write about what he had seen.

“I was determined to expose the situation, because (Americans) aren’t getting the proper information about what’s going on there,” said Sosebee. “I was touched by the Palestinians’ hospitality and their resistance to (Israeli) occupation.”

His articles appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal.

After graduating in 1989 with a degree in international relations, Sosebee began his personal crusade and, using his own savings and private donations, has brought five Palestinian children and young adults to this country. Two, including Nizar, remain here; another is waiting to come.

“I just believe that I have a duty to do something positive in my life while I’m on this Earth,” he said.

Last March, Sosebee’s sister, Christie Sosebee, 27, of Los Angeles, and Arcadia resident Sue Nasir formed the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PO Box 7000-178, Redondo Beach 90277.) They have held several fund-raisers.

“Our goal is to treat as many kids as possible who can’t obtain adequate care in the Middle East,” said Nasir, a Palestinian from Jerusalem who came to this country 33 years ago.

Christie Sosebee said she got involved because of her concern for the children.

“The kids have more spirit than American kids,” she said. “They’ve suffered greatly. I’m frustrated with the (Palestinians’) political situation with Israel. I think what they’re (the Israeli government) doing to the kids is wrong. And it’s covered up in America. But the kids pay the price.”