Teenagers who lost limbs in Gaza are receiving care and prosthetic legs at a centre in Amman, Jordan, where they are also describing the dreams they say the war took from them. The centre is part of an initiative run by Jordan’s Restoring Hope Society, which is caring for more than 450 Palestinian amputees in Amman and Gaza.
Among them are Mahmoud Abou Nusair, 15, and Zuhdi Abou Shanab, 17, who spoke about how they were injured. Their accounts, along with those of Abdulrahman Rihan and his father, Imad Rihan, were given to reporters at the facility in Amman.
Mahmoud Abou Nusair’s leg injury in Deir al-Balah
Mahmoud, who once loved football, said he was looking for firewood in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, on October 31, 2025, when a bullet struck his right leg. The shooting took place during the ongoing Gaza ceasefire agreed that month. He said Israeli fire took his leg and his dreams away.
With Gaza’s healthcare system decimated after three years of war, his injury worsened and he had to undergo an amputation below the knee. He said a doctor first told him his foot had to be removed. His mother objected, asking how he would play football, skate or go to the beach, and calling the cut a sin.
Mahmoud said his first reaction was to scream. After looking at other wounded patients, many of whom had lost arms or legs, he decided his own injury was better and agreed to the surgery.
After he was hurt, he waited about half an hour for a horse-drawn cart to take him to Al-Aqsa hospital. He was then moved to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, where he spent two weeks. He still grieves his sports equipment, including five balls, which were lost when his home was destroyed.
Zuhdi Abou Shanab’s loss of his right leg
Zuhdi, 17, said he lost his entire right leg in a strike on September 8, 2025, that killed nine people and injured 28 others. He had been on his way to buy groceries for his mother when he stopped to talk with a friend. When the building beside them was hit, he lost consciousness and woke up wounded and bleeding.
A week later, doctors told him he had an infection in an artery in his leg and that three veins and three arteries had been severed. An operation to reattach them failed, and doctors then decided to amputate. Zuhdi said the war had torn him away from his friends and left him with nothing, though he still hopes his condition will improve.
He dreams of “returning to Gaza” and said, “I miss my mother, my brothers and my sisters.”
Rihan family wounds from Jabalia home bombing
Abdulrahman Rihan lost the use of his legs when the family home in Jabalia, northern Gaza, was bombed on the morning of January 12, 2025. He and his father were both severely wounded and were taken to several hospitals in Gaza. Abdulrahman described their treatment as “difficult and painful surgeries”.
Three of his brothers were also wounded. Their father, Imad Rihan, 42, said he had to undergo some surgeries without anaesthetic in Gaza. Imad, who lost his left leg, said the war had been very hard on the family.
“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,” he said.
