Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Crowds at Detroit Metro Airport recently cheered and sang as four children from Gaza arrived in wheelchairs. The children are amputees and are among thousands in Gaza who have lost limbs from Israeli bombardments. 

Now, they face severe, life-altering injuries. 

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has made that tiny part of the world — which is roughly the same geographical size as Detroit — home to the highest number of amputee children per capita. 

The World Health Organization says this crisis of child amputees is especially dire because these kids have little access to medical care. Israeli air strikes have decimated what was an already fragile medical system. Many children who have lost their limbs must have surgery without anesthesia, according to the United Nations. 

Steve Sosebee is trying to do something about that. He orchestrates complex plans to evacuate and treat Gazan kids through his organization HEAL Palestine — including the four children who arrived at Detroit Metro Airport on April 13. 

He joined The Metro on Tuesday along with HEAL Palestine volunteer Yasmeen Hamed, a Dearborn Heights mother who has opened her home to multiple young Palestinians who have arrived in the U.S. for treatment after experiencing intense pain and trauma.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

More stories from The Metro on Tuesday, April 15:

• Cutting the ribbon on new affordable housing in Southwest Detroit
• A professor’s thoughts on reforming DEI at universities
• WDET celebrating the life and legacy of Judy Adams at Garden Theater this weekend
• Gov. Whitmer talks tariffs at the Detroit Economic Club

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Many free speech advocates are alarmed as the Trump administration revokes visas for hundreds of international students. Those students could face deportation for committing traffic violations or participating in political activism. 

In both circumstances, this kind of federal action is rare. Students are always at risk of losing their status for criminal convictions, but rarely for political demonstrations. 

People working in the Trump administration, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, say student activists do not have a right to be here. He claims students have been “vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus,” and that international students who “start a riot” will have their visas revoked. 

It is unclear whether any students who have lost their visas have been charged with starting a riot. And so, this has many people worried about crackdowns on free speech and the broader implications for all Americans, including Amir Makled. 

Makled is a civil rights attorney representing a University of Michigan protester pro bono. That protester faces criminal charges filed by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for allegedly defying law enforcement. 

On Sunday, Makled was detained for two hours by federal agents at Detroit Metro Airport after returning from a trip to the Dominican Republic with his wife and two daughters. 

Makled said immigration officials told him they knew he was an attorney and that he takes on “high profile” cases. They wanted access to his cell phone.

Just last month, Makled appeared on The Metro to explain why he is representing a pro-Palestine protester pro bono. This week, he returned to the show to discuss what he experienced during his detainment at Detroit Metro Airport.

The Metro contacted the regional U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which was involved in the detainment of Makled. The agency has not yet replied to that request.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

More stories from The Metro on Wednesday, April 9:

• Increased concerns with measles on the rise
• Changes underway on Monroe Street in Greektown
• Local impact of federal cuts to libraries and museums

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

 Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Gaza is a “news graveyard,” according to the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

At least 232 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began. Some appear to have been targeted by the Israeli army, while others were killed alongside civilians. 

“The war in Gaza has, since October 2023, killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined,” a Costs of War report reads.

On Sunday, the number of journalist fatalities grew when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent camp in a hospital complex in southern Gaza. 

Journalist Helmi al-Faqawi was among the 10 killed. At least nine other journalists were severely injured when the encampment caught fire. 

It has been said — about journalists in Gaza and in many other places — that you can kill a journalist, but you can’t kill the story. 

This unflinching spirit of the press — to seek out the truth and report it at any cost — is central to The Gaza Project. It is a collaboration among more than 40 journalists across a dozen news organizations. Forbidden Stories is coordinating the project. The nonprofit works “to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder.”

Hoda Osman is the executive editor at Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, among the news organizations working on The Gaza Project. She joined The Metro to discuss the findings thus far from The Gaza Project and some of the journalists who have been killed.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

More stories from The Metro on Tuesday, April 8:

• Detroit’s oldest choir has a new director
• ‘Jazz-A-Bet’ book bridges music history and children’s literature
• Fighting food waste with composting in metro Detroit

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Editor’s note: A previous version of the story incorrectly referred to Culture Crate as a nonprofit organization. Culture Crate is a for-profit social venture.

Woman-owned small business Culture Crate is working on a campaign to encourage education on Palestinian cultural traditions. The campaign is accessible through Kickstarter, where people can purchase Nabulsi saboon (soap) making kits.

“One fear with any cultural heritage practice is if you lose the practice, could we then lose the knowledge about it,” said Culture Crate CEO Nadine Zaza.

Saboon making did not just contribute a product to the world, but also advancements in chemistry and language. Zaza explained that Culture Crate’s mission is to preserve these cultural practices, and that her experience as a design educator helped her realize that the “most influential, most important ways for students, and for, really, people and anyone to really engage intentionally with culture and with knowledge is to do it yourself.”

In this way, the saboon making kit encourages preservation of Palestinian cultural traditions through an educational and interactive process.

Saboon making is a cultural practice that has existed in Nablus, Palestine for centuries. In 2024, it was inscribed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This list recognizes non-physical heritage practices around the world as a way to highlight global culturally diverse creativity.

The saboon making kits include everything needed for the process, including silicone molds, gloves, safety goggles, sodium hydroxide and Palestinian olive oil, as well as educational pamphlets illustrating the history of saboon making and booklets explaining the importance of cultural preservation.

Palestinian soap making kits is Culture Crate’s first campaign, but they hope to expand by focusing future campaigns on other heritage practices from other parts of the Arab world.