Gazan boy's uncontrollable shrieks of pain echo during ITV News' chilling visit to Qatari hospital
ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo reunites with critically unwell Abdullah, who was evacuated from Gaza to Qatar
We hear Abdullah a few moments before we see him.
His distant screams are echoing down the corridor at the Turkish hospital in downtown Doha. “I am in pain” he shouts, in Arabic from afar. “I need painkillers.”
We travelled with him to Qatar from Egypt’s border with Gaza four days earlier.
Now, we are here at the clinic to find out what happened to the burned and bandaged boy with injuries so severe he was rushed off the military evacuation flight, before dozens of other wounded passengers.
As we approach his private room, the sound of his yells become louder and even more chilling.
A nurse opens the door to reveal the small frame of the boy behind the uncontrollable shrieks. Abdullah is just 13 years old.
Casts conceal his badly burned hands, although some of the bandages have been removed from his head since we last saw him.
They reveal his severe facial scars - injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on December 4.
But there is much more to his agonising screams than his physical injuries alone. “I need my father, I have no one else left,” he shouts into the air. “I fear for him in this war, that they might bomb him.”
Abdullah is not only wounded but traumatised - his mother, sister and brother were killed in that same attack.
He is in a new country without his beloved father, who survived and is still in Gaza, and can send only irregular messages because of the poor state of the phone network.
Between the occasional sound of message alerts on Abdullah’s phone, are the periods of silence which can last several days, when he is left to wonder whether his dad is dead or alive, safe or in peril.
"I need my father here with me. I need my father here with me, I can’t lose him after I lost everyone else. Oh God," he says.
But Abdullah is not alone. His aunt is in the room. She held his hand as they flew on the Qatari flight on Sunday, but she knows she cannot fill the gap left by his long lost father.
She has tried to conceal from him the depths of his own tragedy, but there's no hiding it.
“The family was trying to flee Gaza” she says, referring to the December attack. “They were told to leave west Gaza to go to the east, and then from the east to the west. And then, they targeted them.”
“There is no safety at all. People aren't safe in their houses, and most civilians have nothing to do with this war.“
Her son, Zain, is also in the room, sitting for short periods with his head in his hands, before getting up to try to help.
He recognises the importance of his new role, supporting Abdullah, his older cousin, as well as his mother.
The weight of responsibility is obvious as, years before adolescence, he takes on the role of father of this family.
The wounded youngster will need skin grafts and plastic surgery - but those operations can only happen once his wounds have recovered. To Abdullah that moment feels a long way away.
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