Rescue workers had no hope that two-year-old Ali Khalifa would be found alive in the Israeli attack on southern Lebanon, after his entire family was killed and he was trapped under the debris for 14 hours.
“Living on a hospital bed, limbs were amputated, bandaged and hung from a respirator that was too big for him,” said his father’s uncle, Hussain Khalifa, who is the only survivor of his family.
The child’s parents, sister and two grandmothers were all killed in the attack on September 29, days after Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah militants.
The attack in Sarafand, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of the coastal city of Sidon, destroyed an apartment complex and killed 15 people, many of them relatives, according to residents.
“Rescuers had almost lost hope of finding anyone alive under the debris,” Khalifa, 45, told AFP at the hospital in Sidon where his two-year-old relative was being treated.
But then “Ali appeared among the debris in the bulldozer’s shovel, when we all thought he was dead,” he said.
“He emerged from the wreckage barely breathing after 14 hours.”
Israel has been at war with Hezbollah since late September, when it increased its war focus from fighting Hamas militants in Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon.
More than 2,600 people have been killed across Lebanon since September 23 in an escalating Israeli air campaign following nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border firing, according to health ministry data.
‘Psychological wound’
Signs of violence were also evident at the hospital in Sidon where Ali was taken after the attack on Sarafand.
The child, who was in a medically induced coma after doctors amputated his right arm, has been transferred to a medical facility in the capital Beirut where he is to undergo pre-prosthetic surgery.
Relative Hussain Khalifa said, “Ali was sleeping on the sofa at home when the attack took place. He is still sleeping today… We are waiting for his surgery to be completed before waking him up.”
After the Sarafund strike, other members of the family were also struggling to survive.
One of Khalifa’s nieces, Zainab, 32, was trapped under the debris for two hours before being rescued and taken to the nearest hospital, the person said.
It was here that she was later informed that her parents, her husband, and three children aged between three and seven years, had all been killed.
Only one of his eyes survived the attack, which was seriously injured.
According to Khalifa, Zainab said she “did not hear the sound of missiles raining down on her family’s home.”
“He saw only darkness and heard deafening screams,” he said.
Ali Ala-al-Din, the doctor treating her, said that “the psychological wound that Zainab suffered is much greater than her physical injury”.
They have also cared for Zainab’s 30-year-old sister Fatima, who was injured in the same attack.
“Both had injuries all over their bodies, fractures in their legs and damaged lungs,” the doctor said.
Medically, he said, “Zainab and Fatima’s cases are not among the most difficult we encountered during the war, but from a psychological and humanitarian point of view they are among the most serious.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
