Mohammed Ibrahim wants to run and play soccer again, but the 14-year-old has had three surgeries since an accident this summer when he was run over as he tried to grab food off an aid truck for his starving family.
A nurse at this Gaza City clinic changes the gauze on his right leg. He winces in pain.
"Focus with us and calm your mind," she tells him. "You will be just fine."
"It hurts," the boy whimpers. Unable to fight back tears, he bursts out: "I can't! I can't!"
This clinic is run by Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French initials MSF, an international aid group that provides lifesaving care in war zones around the world. But this clinic and MSF's 19 other health care facilities and medical points across Gaza are facing massive pressure, and some may even have to shut down.
Israel banned MSF and dozens of international aid organizations, preventing them from bringing in aid or international staff to Gaza and the occupied West Bank under new security and transparency rules that came into effect on Jan. 1.
"It's a catastrophe. An absolute catastrophe," Ibrahim's mom, Neama Abu Ghanim, says of Israel's decision.
She tells NPR that before coming to this MSF clinic, her son spent months unable to sleep from pain, despite seeking treatment in some of Gaza's still partially functioning hospitals. Gaza's health system was shattered during two years of war.
"When I came here, they helped him with medicine to sleep for even just a few hours at night, which helped me so much," she says.
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