Mariam El-Khatib Channels Helplessness Into Purpose

For Mariam El-Khatib, October 7, 2023 was marked by devastation. In the weeks following, as she watched the escalation of violence against Palestinians in Gaza, she did what she had been doing for years as a leader in the local movement for Palestinian liberation — attending protests, calling the offices of her elected officials, hosting presentations on Palestine, taking interviews with news channels. As an active member of the Minnesota chapter of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Mariam is often seen in local activist spaces, serving as one of the most prominent advocates in Minnesota for a free Palestine.

But as the death toll in Gaza continued to rise, “I felt a deep helplessness set in,” El-Khatib remembers. “None of what I was doing felt like it was making a difference.”

Days passed while she could not bring herself to show up on the streets, to pick up the phone and make calls, or to take on speaking engagements. Then, in November 2023, El-Khatib saw a photo on social media that would change the trajectory of her career and her life. The photo captured a young child looking straight into the camera. His right arm had been amputated, his right leg had an external fixture, and his face was dotted with scars. He was smiling, holding in his left hand a surgical glove that had been inflated like a toy balloon. “The level of devastation and injuries on the child’s body was in stark contrast to his soft, hopeful eyes,” she says.

At the time, El-Khatib was working in product management at LaunchGood, a global fundraising platform for Muslims. But seeing this photo brought back a passion that she had set aside nearly eight years prior, when she graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering. “Images from previous assaults on Gaza had first placed the field of prosthetics in my mind,” El-Khatib says. “When I saw that little boy who had been unjustly robbed of his limbs, I knew that it was time to make the move I had dreamed of making many years ago.”

She vividly remembers the day she visited the Prosthetics-Orthotics Center at Northwestern University, where she was applying to earn her master’s degree. After the tour, which had left her feeling excited and energized for the future, she stopped in a nearby coffee shop to work. She opened her laptop, logged into X (formerly known as Twitter), and at the top of her feed, saw a post announcing the death of Dr. Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet, professor, and activist who had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza.

“It took everything in me not to break down in that coffee shop. All the joy and inspiration I had just felt was sucked out of me,” remembers El-Khatib. “It was a solid reminder of what it meant to be Palestinian: to constantly live between hope and heartbreak.”

When she entered her master’s program the following year, El-Khatib was able to “channel the feelings of sadness, devastation, and anger,” she explains. The sense of helplessness was gone: “For the first time since the genocide began, I felt that I was going to be able to contribute meaningfully and directly with my hands to help my people.”

 

 

Although Gaza was at the forefront of El-Khatib’s mind at every moment, she was now surrounded by people who knew next to nothing about the violence affecting her people.

She was told by someone working in the field that it would be difficult to gain experience with children who lost their limbs due to war because there just weren’t many. “I was stunned into silence,” says El-Khatib.

In those early interactions with others in the field of prosthetics, El-Khatib realized that her responsibility lay not only in learning to provide care for people with amputations — it was also her role to “bring Gaza into a space that did not know much about it.”

El-Khatib’s personal advocacy has connected her with students sympathetic to the cause, with prosthetists who have served in Gaza, and with organizers who are working to mobilize the field as a whole. Most recently, she traveled to Ecuador with an organization that provides prosthetic limbs to underserved communities, “teaching me much of what could be applied in Gaza.”

In January 2025, Mariam received her white coat. On that day, as on any other, Gaza was top of mind for El-Khatib. Gaza continues to be her focal point as she prepares to graduate in March 2026 and enter residency. “I don’t know the exact route of this path, but I’m driven by the deep conviction that we must direct our skills and talents to uplifting our community,” says El-Khatib. “Gaza has shifted my world. It has reshaped how I live my life.”

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