Seven-year-old Shaam's father Husny Saeed Altawel checks her scars every day.

"How is your foot now?" he asks.

"It hurts," says Shaam.

"Does it hurt a lot or a little?"

"A lot."

Husny Saeed Altawel is not a medic, he's just a worried dad.

Shaam and her family stayed in several places in Gaza before they finally got out two months ago and came to the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

"The children are suffering psychologically. Since the war, they are so scared, they don't even want to go to the toilet alone. I have to be with them all the time," says Husny Saeed Altawel.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed their home a year ago, he says. They survived, but 52 members of their extended family in the neighborhood were killed.

"We had just started eating when suddenly we found ourselves in another world. The explosion was really strong and loud, and all the dust and the ceiling collapsed on us," he says.

Shaam suffered severe injuries. The medical care available in Gaza was not enough, and her wounds deteriorated. It got so bad that Shaam was allowed to leave. Her siblings and father could go too but their mother had to stay behind. Husny says Israel wouldn't give her permission.

Here in Romania, medics are trying to make up for lost time. Orthopedic surgeon Ioan Fodor removed pieces of shrapnel from her leg, something, he says, should have been done right away.

"The risk is, if there is an infection, it will not heal properly, and that would mean another operation, and you would have to remove pieces of bone. If the infection spreads, and the bone deteriorates again, the risk is we'd not be able to do any more," says Fodor.

The worst-case scenario, he says, would be amputation of Shaam's leg.

Husny Saeed Altawel says he wants to remain positive, but that being on his own, and the uncertainty. makes things overwhelming.

"It's really hard for me to take care of my children properly, and I really, really hope, that their mother can come from Gaza. Then they would feel life is good again, feel safe and be psychologically stable," he says.

He tries to call their mother.

They're all desperate to hear her voice, to know she is okay.

"Your Mum isn't answering. She doesn't have Internet" he says to his children.

"But try again," his son says.

He tells the children their mother's silence is because of power cuts. But he doesn't really know why she didn't answer.

Their days in Bucharest are dominated by her absence. They miss her and worry about her. The last time they spoke, she told them it was cold in Gaza and the wind had blown parts of her tent away.