Fergal Keane
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
A child with a child in her arms. Shada Aboudaka, 17 years old, is feeding her six-month-old sister, Naveen. The baby looks more like a newborn. She struggles to absorb nutrition. She has a hole in her heart. You're sad because you're leaving us and going, Shada tells the infant. Naveen is being evacuated to Jordan for treatment, which isn't available in Gaza.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
Mothers are having to make heart-wrenching choices. Naveen's mum, Inas, has six children, but four must stay behind.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
Everybody is wrapped up well for the journey. The windows of the buses taking them away are misted from the warmth of the bodies on board. A little boy presses his palms against the glass. Outside, a father waves repeatedly. The 29 children and their guardians were allowed to travel by bus, ambulance and helicopter after first being cleared by Israel.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
The evacuation was organised by Jordan, whose King Abdullah announced it during a meeting with President Trump in Washington last month. Here at Marka Air Base on the outskirts of Amman, I can see two helicopters approaching. They're the first of a wave coming out of Gaza today with injured and sick children from the war.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
Right beside me, there are ambulances lined up to take them to hospitals here in Amman. It's the first phase of a complex operation that's been planned for months. First to emerge, blinking into the sunlight, was 11-year-old Abdul Rahman al-Nashash. He walked with crutches. His left leg was amputated when he was caught in Israeli shelling.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
His mum Asma explained that her husband was killed in an airstrike. In Jordan, though, there was hope for her boy.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
We're in an ambulance now, travelling through Amman, and you can hear the driver urging cars there to get out of the way. Behind me, on a stretcher, is eight-year-old Monotala Akel. She's got serious injuries to her legs. She's lying there, still, quiet, in this completely new environment, just come from Gaza. Monotel has now been moved into a private room in this gleaming intensive care unit.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
But there was a voice from home. Dr Mohamed Matar is an anaesthetist at Al Rashid Hospital. He's originally from Gaza. A warm, consoling presence, he told me of the pain he feels for the child victims of war.
Global News Podcast
Trump tells Congress he's 'just getting started'
What we saw emerging from the helicopters were wounded, seriously ill children. Nearly all of them had left close family behind. Still, the sight of the Jordanian rescue aircraft in the bright sun, the smiles on several young faces, felt like that rarest of things in this war, a hopeful interlude.
Global News Podcast
Jordanian helicopters begin flying in aid to Gaza
We went to an area in the south... and it is very close to Can Yunis. When we landed, they kept the rotor blades running. We jumped off the helicopter to get out of the way, really, of the Jordanian forces who were delivering the aid. Now, what was taken in this morning, and you can probably hear choppers behind me at the moment...
Global News Podcast
Jordanian helicopters begin flying in aid to Gaza
Still ongoing, this operation, but they brought in medicine in particular and also baby formula. Why is that important? Well, if you put those things, for example, on a long road journey, and there have been lots of road convoys from Jordan, there is a danger that if they get delayed... then they will spoil. And the need for medicine is acute.
Global News Podcast
Jordanian helicopters begin flying in aid to Gaza
The health system in Gaza has been absolutely battered by months and months, 15 months of this war. And so that's why this air bridge, as the Jordanians are calling it, and which they've been joined in by the Italians, by the United Kingdom, is absolutely essential in terms of getting medical help to people who need it most.
Global News Podcast
Jordanian helicopters begin flying in aid to Gaza
I think most of that is going to be going in at the moment via road. Now, we have had a significant increase in the number of trucks being allowed to cross the border and bring aid in. But, you know, you set it against the scale of the need and the months and months and months of backed up need where you have around two million people displaced. I mean, you think about that figure.
Global News Podcast
Jordanian helicopters begin flying in aid to Gaza
most of them with no proper home to go back to, and roughly the same number of people dependent on international aid. This is a huge need, and it's going to be an ongoing one. It's not going to be a crisis that fades from the headlines.