Sidon, Lebanon:
Rescue workers did not expect to find two-year-old Ali Khalifeh alive after he was trapped under rubble for 14 hours after his entire family was killed in an Israeli attack on southern Lebanon.
He was amputated, bandaged and placed on a ventilator in a hospital bed, but it was too much for him. “Ali is the only survivor of his family,” said Hussein Khalifeh, the father's uncle.
The toddler's parents, sister and two grandmothers were all killed in an attack on September 29, days after Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah militants.
The attack in Sarafand, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of the coastal city of Sidon, destroyed an apartment building and killed 15 people, many of them relatives, residents said.
“Rescue workers had almost lost hope of finding anyone alive under the rubble,” Khalife, 45, told AFP from a Sidon hospital where a two-year-old relative was being treated. ” he said.
But then, he said, “everyone thought he was dead and then Ali emerged from the rubble of the bulldozer's shovel.”
“He emerged from the rubble 14 hours later, barely breathing.”
Israel has been at war with Hezbollah since late September, expanding the focus of the war from fighting Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border with Lebanon.
After nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border shelling, Israel's air campaign has intensified, killing more than 2,600 people across Lebanon since September 23, according to Health Ministry figures.
“Psychic scars”
Signs of violence were also evident at the hospital in Sidon, where Ali was rushed to after the Sarafand attack.
The toddler was in a medically induced coma after doctors amputated his right hand and was later flown to a medical facility in the capital Beirut, where he will undergo pre-prosthesis surgery.
“Ali was sleeping on the sofa at home when the strike happened. He is still sleeping today… We were waiting for the surgery to be completed before we woke him up,” said Hussein Khalifeh, a relative. he said.
After the Sarafand strike, other families were also fighting for survival.
One of Khalifeh's nieces, Zainab, 32, was trapped under the rubble for two hours before being rescued and taken to the nearest hospital, the man said.
There she was then informed that her parents, husband, and three children, aged between three and seven, had all been murdered.
The impact left her with only one eye seriously injured.
Zainab said, “I couldn't hear the missiles that rained down on my parents' house,'' Khalifeh said.
“All she could see was darkness and ear-piercing screams,” he said.
Ali Alaa El-Din, the doctor treating her, said, “Zainab's emotional injuries are far greater than her physical injuries.''
He also cared for Zainab's sister Fatima, 30, who was injured in the same attack.
Doctors said both men had “injuries all over their bodies, including broken legs and lung damage.”
Medically, he added, “Zainab and Fatima's cases are not the most difficult cases we faced during the war, but from a psychological and human point of view they are the most serious.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
