Applause and ululations erupted as 12-year-old Yassin Alghalban emerged through sliding doors in the arrivals hall of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday, his mother pushing him in a courtesy wheelchair.
His three-year-old brother Zeinnedin, sitting between the stumps of Yassin’s amputated legs, smiled shyly at the crowd. His two sisters, Nusaiba and Zeena, struggled with stacked suitcases containing enough belongings for the year. Yassin — who lost both his legs in an explosion in Gaza in April 2024 — is expected to undergo surgical treatment and be fitted for prosthetic limbs at an Atlanta-area medical facility over the next 12 months.
Yassin is one of 11 Gazan children who arrived in airports around the U.S. early this week for medical treatment — in the “largest single evacuation of injured children from Gaza,” according to the nonprofit Heal Palestine, which sponsored the evacuation. The 12-year-old is also the second child from Gaza to come to Atlanta for medical treatment since the beginning of Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory in October 2023, a military campaign that’s widely recognized as a genocide. Earlier this year, another injured 12-year-old, Habiba, came to Atlanta for a cranioplasty.
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