The four children had survived horrors in Gaza.
But on Sunday morning, they reached the end of an arduous journey out of the conflict zone and into American hospitals to receive urgent medical care. They flew from Cairo to Kennedy Airport, where they were greeted with much fanfare by a crowd of about 50 people carrying plush toys, flowers and bobbing balloons.
Among the children was Fadi Alzant, 6, a gaunt boy with pale skin and strawberry blond hair who appeared dazed as the crowd rushed around his wheelchair. An airport employee grew agitated and shouted at people to disperse and to put away their cameras.
Fadi, who has cystic fibrosis and weighs about 25 pounds, is suffering from severe malnourishment caused by famine, according to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which coordinated the children’s journeys with assistance from the World Health Organization.
He will be treated at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Queens. Paramedics lifted the tiny, wide-eyed child out of his wheelchair and onto a gurney that dwarfed him even further. Then, they carried him to an ambulance bound for the hospital.
“We love you!” said a woman in the crowd, who was dabbing her eyes.
“Let’s not overwhelm them, guys,” someone else said. “Did they get water?”
The Relief Fund, a volunteer-based nonprofit organization that provides free medical care to injured and sick children, said the other children’s journeys would end at hospitals in Ohio, Texas and South Carolina.
Since the war in the Gaza Strip began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which killed about 1,200 people, more than 34,000 people have died in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Tareq Hailat, who helps oversee the travel efforts for the charity group, said that the children had been chosen based on referrals from hospitals in Gaza or, more commonly, discovered through social media posts about children in need. The group found Fadi, for instance, after his mother made a video pleading for help that went viral. The team has evacuated more than 100 children to Egypt, and 60 were then taken to other countries. Seven of them, including the four who arrived Sunday, have been brought to the United States.
“It’s so important that we’re showing every single person in Palestine that we mean it when we say that we see them,” said Lafi Melo, 28, of the Bronx, who was at the airport on Sunday to show support for the children and their families.
Mx. Melo, who is of Palestinian and Latino descent and uses the pronouns they and them, is a volunteer for the Gaza Sunbirds, a paracycling team that is raising money for aid to Gaza. “These people have been through so much to get to this point,” they said. “And it’s the very least that we can do — to say, ‘Welcome.’”
The other children included Adam Abu Ajwa, 11, from Gaza, whose shelter was bombed on Jan. 16 by a grenade and a rocket, killing his mother and brother, according to the relief fund. The rocket caused Adam to fly into the air, damaging his head and seriously hurting his lower body. His sister, Zaina Abu Ajwa, 26, was also badly injured in the attack and flew with him to Kennedy Airport, where they boarded a flight to South Carolina.
“There’s no word even to describe how horrible every second was,” she said as they waited for their connecting flight. “The only thing I’m focusing on is to get Adam here and get the right medical treatment for him. And, inshallah, we will go back.”
Rakan Aldardasawi, 9, was injured in an Israeli airstrike that killed three of his sisters, according to aid workers. Rakan, who is traveling to a hospital in Galveston, Texas, was rescued from beneath rubble after he was trapped there for hours.
He appeared in good spirits on Sunday, grinning broadly as he fielded questions in Arabic and received gifts from dozens of strangers with smartphone cameras pointed in his direction. As he sat in his wheelchair, he fiddled with the string on a heart-shaped balloon adorned with a drawing of a teddy bear and the words “I love you.”
A few feet away, people gathered around Saja Bilal Junaid, 3, the youngest of the children. Saja’s head was covered entirely in bandages except for a small opening for her eyes, nose and mouth.
Her face was charred with third-degree burns after an Israeli airstrike hit her home at Jabalia refugee camp, the aid group said. She is being taken to a hospital in Dayton, Ohio, because it was not possible for her to be treated in Gaza, according to the group.
Despite her extensive injuries, Saja frolicked through the airport on Sunday. Volunteer workers crouched and held balloons near her as she batted at them and spun in circles.
“These are their very first memories here,” Mx. Melo said. “In the story of their life, this is the moment that we have the pen. So I’m hoping that we write something really beautiful.”
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
