7 year old Palestinian rehospitalised a week after being injured by tear gas canister

A week after a seven-year-old Palestinian was seriously injured by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem, the boy was rehospitalised after his initial treatment damaged his windpipe, his father told Ma’an on Sunday.

Clashes were taking place on May 21 in the town of al-Khader, with Israeli forces firing rubber-coated steel bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas canisters toward children who were heading home from school, when Hasan Ahmad Issa was hit in the back of the head with a tear gas canister and knocked unconscious.

An Israeli army spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the incident at the time.

Photo of Hasan at Shaare Zedek Hospital, shared by his father on Facebook

After being hit by the tear gas canister, Hasan was first evacuated to al-Yamamah hospital in al-Khader, then to al-Hussein Beit Jala governmental hospital, and finally to the Bethlehem Arab Society hospital in Beit Jala where he was treated for a fractured skull and underwent surgery for internal bleeding in his head.

The injury required 13 stitches, according to the father, Ahmad Issa.

A CT scan immediately after the surgery showed that Hasan’s condition was stable, and another CT scan on Friday confirmed that he recovered from the head injury and suffered no damage to his brain. He remained in the hospital until Tuesday.

However, Ahmad said that shortly after Hasan’s return home, the family noticed that the boy was having difficulty breathing, so they took him back to Bethlehem Arab Society hospital on Thursday.

Speaking via telephone from Shaare Zedek, Ahmad told Ma’an that doctors there said that the breathing tube that was inserted in Hasan’s windpipe at al-Yamamah hospital in al-Khader – his first point of treatment – injured the child’s trachea, causing the breathing problems.

Doctors at Shaare Zedek told Ahmad that Hasan would need to stay in the ICU until Thursday, June 1, to undergo surgery to fix the damage caused to his trachea.