Sadeel reunited in Gaza but medicine runs short as sick children wait
Three-year-old Sadeel is back with her family in Gaza after a liver transplant in Egypt, but she has only months of medicine left and other sick children are still waiting to evacuate.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story.
Three-year-old Sadeel is back in Gaza with her mother and siblings after a life-saving liver transplant in Egypt, but her family says the medicine she needs to stay alive is running out.
Sadeel was 10 months old and critically ill when she first needed an urgent liver transplant. The operation could not be done in Gaza's war-damaged hospitals. A British charity, Children Not Numbers, arranged a rare evacuation to neighbouring Egypt with only days to spare. The charity later said media coverage had helped it arrange the evacuation. Her father donated part of his liver for the transplant. The surgery saved her life and, according to reports, turned her into a lively child.
Israel allowed only one family member to accompany Sadeel. That meant she and her father did not see her mother or siblings for more than two years. The family was reunited a few weeks ago on the Israel-Gaza border. They are now living in one of Gaza's few undamaged buildings. But the separation has left a mark. Sadeel's mother, Huda, said her daughter does not know her and seemed to be in shock when she first held her.
Sadeel now needs lifelong medication to stop her body rejecting the transplanted liver. The medicine and essential tests are not available in Gaza, her father said. When the family arrived a month ago, they had enough medicine for five months. They now have four months left. The parents described endless anxiety and guilt that their daughter survived when other children did not. The mother said other children in the same hospital ward died when the power went out and ventilators stopped, including three in the room with her.
The charity that helped Sadeel says it is overwhelmed. It currently has 66 children registered who need critical evacuation, meaning their lives depend on getting out of Gaza as soon as possible. The charity says it does not have the resources to fund their medical treatment and is being asked to fill gaps left by governments. Among the cases are Ibrahim, five, who has chronic kidney disease; Nadel, five, who has leukaemia; Mohammed, an 11-month-old born with a stoma; and Bizan, a six-month-old with complex congenital heart disease. Bizan's mother said it had been five months since they received an evacuation order and her child was in constant pain and crying.
Aid groups say there are thousands of children like Sadeel in Gaza. The charity says 127 children on its list have died before they could get out since the war began, including one in the past few days. The supposed ceasefire has not ended the danger. Continuing Israeli airstrikes mean Gaza remains a massively dangerous place, and doctors' groups such as Medecins Sans Frontieres say clearly marked vehicles are still coming under Israeli attack. The head of the World Health Organisation has said these children's survival depends on sustained access across multiple crossing points.
Israeli authorities insist they regularly facilitate evacuations and say there is no limit on the number that can happen. International news organisations are still not allowed by Israel to report from inside Gaza. The new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, has spoken about the need for decisive action to address the fate of these children. For Sadeel's family, the rejoining is real, but so is the fear that her medicine will run out and that other sick children will not get the same chance.
On screen
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Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, mapped by channel. Ordered by how many channels carried each claim.
| Claim | ITV |
|---|---|
| A three-year-old girl from Gaza was reunited with her family after receiving life-saving treatment in Egypt. | |
| Sadeel requires lifelong medication to prevent her body rejecting her liver, but the medication is unavailable in Gaza. | |
| Since the war began, 127 children have died while waiting for treatment outside Gaza. |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
The Evening News led with Sadeel's reunion as a rare piece of hope, but built the report around the medicine shortage and the wider failure to evacuate sick children. It gave more space than the later bulletin to the charity's caseload, named individual children waiting, and included political and humanitarian responses, including the ceasefire, the World Health Organisation and the Foreign Secretary. It closed by saying the fate of children like Sadeel was being met with exhausted indifference.
- “My daughter doesn't know her own mother, says Huda. When I first held her in my arms, she seemed to be in shock. She doesn't know me.”
- “So we have 66 children that are currently registered with us that require critical evacuation.”
- “The really devastating thing is that there are thousands of Sadeels in Gaza.”
The News at Ten framed the reunion as one of those rare moments of hope, then quickly turned to the unresolved medical supply problem and the continuing danger despite the ceasefire. It used the same reporting but trimmed some detail, focusing on the 127 children who died waiting and the ban on international news organisations entering Gaza. It ended by saying the fate of children like Sadeel is too often unremarked and unheard.
- “Now it should be one of those rare moments of hope, a desperately ill infant girl being reunited with her mother in Gaza two years after being evacuated out of the war zone for life-saving surgery.”
- “Since the war began, 127 children on their list have died before they could get out.”
- “But Israel is still banning international news organisations from entering her homeland”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.