DESPERATE

American Teen in Gaza Blames Israel for Horrific Injuries: ‘My Fingers Are Gone Now’

Farah Abuolba said an Israeli strike hit her bus, leaving her injured and unable to complete her journey out of Gaza.

American teenager Farah Abuolba and her mother were left stranded at Al-Quds, a hospital in Gaza, after an Israeli airstrike upended their escape to Egypt and left them with horrific injuries, they said in an interview filmed last week and aired by CNN on Monday. “I want to feel like ‘oh I can move my fingers.’ My fingers are gone now,” Abuolba told CNN. She said she sustained her injuries while traveling south on a bus as her and her mom again tried to make it to the border crossing with Egypt. Abuolba said an Israeli strike hit the bus. Israeli officials denied to CNN that they struck that street at that time. “I walked from the beach—probably like three miles from the beach to the hospital. I could have given up … all my blood dripped all over me,” Abuolba said. In Pennsylvania, her father pleaded with State Department officials to stop the fighting. “I pay tax for United States of America to support Israel to shoot and to bomb my daughter and my wife,” he said. Operations at Al-Quds, Gaza’s second-largest hospital, have since ceased due to fuel shortages.