Gaza: This 12-year-old dreams of combing her hair again after surviving an Israeli attack

Twelve-year-old Hala Shukri Dehliz was playing with her friends on a swing in Gaza one evening during Ramadan, even as the constant sounds of war raged in the background. 

Suddenly, an Israeli air strike detonated near the swing. Its force twisted the metal chains around her head, tearing off parts of her scalp along with her hair.

“My hair got stuck with the swing,” she recalls. “The skin of my head was removed. I was rushed to the hospital. I stayed there for two months, but they couldn’t treat me. The inflammations and ulcers only got worse.”

The first day they did surgery, they used 175 stitches to close her scalp.

“I woke up and saw myself without hair. I had a breakdown and fainted. My parents tried to reassure me. They said, ‘Don’t be afraid. You’ll travel and get treatment. Your hair will grow again.’ But I kept crying.”

Before the bombing, Hala had prepared for Eid with excitement.

“I had bought ties for my hair and Eid clothes,” she says, her voice breaking.

“But I spent Eid in a hospital bed. I didn’t feel the joy. I didn’t wear the clothes. I was just... there.”

'We have been displaced six times'

Hala’s father, Shukri Omar Eid Dehliz, speaks with the fatigue of a man shouldering the unbearable.

“We are originally from Rafah. We have been displaced six times. Our home was bombed and demolished. Each place we went, we could only stay for 20 days, a month, sometimes two. Now, we’re in Khan Younis, al-Mawasi, living in a tent near the sea.”

Their tent stands on rented land they can “barely afford”.

“Winter brings floods inside the tent. Summer is unbearable. There’s no electricity, no solar panels. Even basic food is missing,” he said.

There is no bread. No medicine. No safety.

“Hala can’t even take painkillers,” he says. “She needs to eat before taking them, but there’s no food. We survive on aid - mostly lentil soup. Every child gets one small plate per day. That’s it.

“We are a family of seven. Some days we have only two pieces of bread. We divide them among us. The children cry for food. I have nothing to give them. It’s a cruelty no parent should face. My child begs for bread, and I can’t provide it. Sometimes, we just want to die instead of continuing this life in Gaza.”

A mirror without reflection

Hala’s daily routine is now confined to the interior of a suffocating tent. She isolates herself from other children who react to her scarred head with confusion and fear.

“When I try to go outside, the children ask why I don’t have hair. They get scared. So I stay inside. I play alone. I try to write and draw myself,” she says softly.

'When I try to go outside, the children ask why I don't have hair. They get scared. So I stay inside. I play alone'

-  Hala Shukri Dehliz

“Every day, I stand in front of the mirror trying to comb my hair. But there is no hair to comb.”

Hala was a top student, dreaming of becoming a doctor - dreams now paused by trauma and the physical pain of untreated wounds.

“I was always the first in my class,” she remembers. “I used to wake up early, comb my hair, go to school, then play with my friends. Now, I don’t go to school. I look in the mirror and I just see loss.”

She still keeps a lock of her long brown hair, holding it as a reminder of who she was, and who she hopes to become again.

“I want to travel abroad and get treatment. I want to have my hair again. I want to play with my friends. I want to feel pretty again.”

'Gaza is starving to death'

Hala’s father speaks in anguish about the daily torment and mounting famine which has in recent weeks led to a growing number of deaths from malnutrition and dehydration.

“There’s no flour, no rice, no milk or vegetables. Even when there’s food in the market, the prices are too high for us. My four-year-old cries for bread. I can’t bear it.”

He recounts how their lives have shrunk into a punishing cycle of fear, hunger and helplessness.

“The bombs fall constantly. The children scream in terror. Gaza is in a state of disaster. We are unemployed. The borders are closed. No aid is coming in. As parents, we demand the world to act. This genocide must stop.

“We are not asking for luxury. We are asking for the basics - bread, water, medicine. We are asking for a chance for our children to live.”

Hala’s story is not an isolated tragedy. She is one of tens of thousands of children injured or killed in a war that has erased homes, schools and playgrounds, as well as whole families.

Border closures have blocked any attempt to evacuate her for treatment. Her parents - both injured in separate attacks - desperately try to find sterile gauze, clean water and food to support her healing.

“She needs daily medical care,” says her mother, Mayada. “She cries every day, remembering her hair. Her head is still full of ulcers and infections. If she doesn’t get out soon, it will get worse.”

Despite everything, Hala said she still dreams of a hospital bed in a foreign country where doctors will help her scalp heal. She dreams of brushing her hair and even one day becoming a doctor.

“I hope the world hears me. I hope someone helps me travel. I want my hair back. I want to be beautiful again.”