ATHENS: Raghad Al-Fara is struggling to rebuild her teenage life in Athens, not least because she now moves around with crutches because of injuries suffered in the Gaza war.
Evacuated from the besieged Palestinian territory in February she now lives in a shelter for refugee women. “I never thought I would survive, let alone set foot on European soil,” the 15-year-old said.
Raghad is one of 10 Gazan minors suffering from “complex” orthopaedic and psychological injuries, according to Heracles Moskoff, secretary general for vulnerable persons at the migration ministry.
Injured during an Israeli bombing, she was evacuated with her mother Shadia and her younger sister Argwan.
The rest of the family — three other children and the father — remain in Gaza.
In total, 26 Palestinians arrived in Athens at the end of February, according to the Greek foreign ministry.
“When we learned that Greece agreed to host us, it was a relief,” said Shadia Al-Fara, the teenager’s mother.
‘Not just a survivor’
Sara Al-Sweirki, 20, who now also lives in Athens, is determined to “not just be a survivor.”
“I want to be a girl my age like others, learn guitar and piano, and study,” stressed the young woman, who left Gaza in September with her mother and brother.
Accepted by the private Deree American College of Greece, Al-Sweirki will begin her studies in January.
She chose psychology “to help others overcome their traumas,” she said.
Raghad could use such expertise. Her mother noted that the teenager still has not received psychological support “even though she wet the bed for months” due to the severe shock she experienced.
Raghad was injured in a July 2024 Israeli bombing in the Gaza city of Khan Younis that caused hundreds of casualties.
Her right leg and back were crushed under the rubble of a building.
“For two months, my daughter was on a respirator and for seven months, bedridden, unable to move,” Al-Fara recalled painfully.
Upon her arrival in Greece, Raghad was treated by an orthopedist and a physiotherapist at a children’s hospital.
But she had to wait months for a support belt, and her mother, a former hairdresser, had to find orthopedic shoes on her own.
“Greece took responsibility for us but then abandoned us,” Raghad’s mother said, stating that the Greek state provides no financial assistance.
Even though the Palestinian community in Athens has asked the government to host more injured Gazans, there is “no political will” by the conservative Greek government, said Palestinian official Latif Darwesh.
“The current government has forgotten its historic friendship with the Palestinian people,” Darwesh said.
Many Palestinian students found refuge in Greece in the 1980s, under the socialist administration of Andreas Papandreou, who cultivated close relations with late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Popular solidarity
Israel’s tactics used against Gaza since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 set off the war, has heightened solidarity toward Palestinians among the Greek population.
The government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has yet to recognize a Palestinian state, even though 74 percent of Greeks would support such a move, according to a recent study by aboutpeople, a Greek social research group.
Sara Al-Sweirki does not know if she will stay in Athens “forever,” though she acknowledges that “the future in Gaza remains very uncertain.”
A truce agreement that came into effect on October 10 “does not mean reconstruction,” said Shadia Al-Fara, who has enrolled her daughters in Greek school.
“We cannot return to live under tents with the fear of bombings resuming!” said the mother.
“My three other children in Gaza ask me to get them out of this hell” but Al-Fara says she feels “powerless” to help them.
Sara Al-Sweirki, meanwhile, looks to the future.
“My dream was interrupted” after October 7. “But now I am more determined than ever to pursue my goal (of studying),” she said.