The 3D picture we’re shown of Maryam’s skull shows a gaping hole.
It’s astonishing the young girl from Gaza even survived an Israeli bombing near her home.
But she’s sitting up in her hospital bed in the Jordanian capital Amman, as we look on and she’s smiling and joking during a call with her father who remains in the Palestinian territory.
“I’m okay,” she says cheerily, “how are you?”
She’s heard overnight there’s been severe flooding in Gaza and the tents and makeshift shelters which tens of thousands are living in, are now soaked and under water.
But her father is focussed on how his 12-year-old daughter is feeling ahead of yet another life-saving brain operation.
Maryam is a rarity.
She is one of a few hundred patients who’ve been allowed by the Israeli authorities to leave the Gaza Strip to receive critical medical help since the October 2025 agreement signed between Israel and Hamas, which was aimed at ending hostilities.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says they’ve identified nearly 16,000 medical cases needing urgent critical care outside Gaza.
WHO data documented a total of 217 patients who left Gaza for medical care in other countries between the dates of 13 October and 26 November 2025.
Since then, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has said a further 72 patients and caregivers from Gaza have departed the Israeli-occupied area for Jordan.
But behind them, they left a long queue of ill and wounded people in desperate need of the sort of specialised medical help Maryam Ibrahim is receiving in Jordan.
Having survived the bombing and having survived the craniectomy (removing her fractured skull), Maryam’s next challenge was surviving the wait to receive permission to leave Gaza for the surgery which offered her a chance of long-term survival.
She waited almost half a year for this operation: an operation considered vital.
Without it, Maryam’s brain was unprotected. Any stumble or accident risked irreversibly injuring her brain and negatively impacting her neurological functions – a risk which was considerably heightened given where she’s living.
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) which has funded her medical care in Jordan says they’ve “witnessed at first hand the catastrophic toll of this conflict on children’s health and well-being.
“Thousands have been orphaned, maimed or left with lifelong trauma. Entire hospitals and health centres have been destroyed leaving an entire population of children without access to even the most basic medical care.”
While humanitarian organisations continue to encounter challenges in organising evacuations from Gaza, two British surgeons were amongst a group of medics refused permission by the Israeli authorities to enter the territory.
Dr Victoria Rose, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon with the IDEALS charity, told Sky News: “WHO calculated that in 2025, only 47% of emergency medical teams were granted entry to Gaza.
“This is at a time when hundreds of local doctors have been detained by the IDF with many still unaccounted for. Gaza does not have the manpower to cope with the numbers of injured.”
Read more:
More children from Gaza to be brought to UK for urgent treatment
Rafah crossing to open ‘in coming days’, says Israel
Maryam’s case received widespread publicity after the intervention of the popular American children’s educator and YouTuber Rachel Griffin Accurso known as “Ms Rachel”.
She highlighted her case by talking to the little girl via Instagram after Maryam posted about how she was being bullied for her unusual appearance because of her cranial injury.
Maryam’s family realise she’s been unusually fortunate to receive this specialised care, but they know too that as soon as Maryam is well enough, the little girl will be returned to Gaza and an unpredictable future.
The Israeli authorities continue to insist via X that they are helping to organise humanitarian aid into Gaza and are committed to “facilitating a humanitarian-medical response” – which includes establishing field hospitals.
They have repeatedly suggested that it is the lack of coordination on the part of various countries and organisations which is the issue – but this runs counter to what multiple humanitarian groups and individuals have experienced.
