Buried 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler recovers

Sidon, Lebanon (AFP) Rescuers did not expect to find two-year-old Ali Khalife alive after an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed his entire family and left him trapped under rubble for 14 hours.

Amputated, bandaged and hooked up to a ventilator in a hospital bed that was too big for him, “Ali is the only survivor of his family,” said Hussein Khalifeh, his father’s uncle.

The toddler’s parents, sister and two grandmothers were killed in the Sept. 29 strike, days after Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah militants.

The strike on Sarafand, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of the coastal city of Sidon, destroyed a residential complex and killed 15 people, many of whom residents said were relatives.

“Rescuers had almost given up hope of finding anyone alive under the rubble,” Khalife, 45, told AFP from a hospital in Sidon where his two-year-old relative was being treated.

But then “Ali showed up in the rubble of the bulldozer bucket after we all thought he was dead,” he said.

“He emerged from the rubble, barely breathing, 14 hours later.”

Israel has been at war with Hezbollah since late September, when it expanded the focus of its war from fighting Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border with Lebanon.

The escalating Israeli air campaign, after nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border attacks, has killed more than 2,600 people across Lebanon since Sept. 23, according to the health ministry.

– “Psychological scars” –

Signs of violence were evident even in the hospital in Sidon, where Ali was rushed after the Sarafand strike.

The toddler, in a medically induced coma after doctors amputated his right arm, has since been transferred to a medical facility in the capital Beirut where he will undergo pre-prosthetic surgery.

“Ali was sleeping on the sofa at home when the strike began. He is still sleeping today… we are waiting for the operations to be completed before waking him up,” said relative Hussein Khalifeh.

Other family members were also struggling to survive the Sarafand strike.

One of Khalife’s nieces, Zainab, 32, was trapped under the rubble for two hours before she was rescued and taken to a nearby hospital, the man said.

It was there that she was later informed that her parents, husband and three children, ranging in age from three to seven, had been killed.

The impact left her with only one seriously damaged eye.

According to Khalife, Zainab said she “did not hear the sounds of rockets hitting her family’s home.”

“All she saw was darkness and heard deafening screams,” he said.

Ali Alaa El-Din, the doctor treating her, said that “the psychological scars that Zainab has suffered are much more serious than her physical injuries.”

He was also caring for Zainab’s 30-year-old sister Fatima, who was injured in the same attack.

Both had injuries “all over their bodies, with broken legs and lung damage,” the doctor said.

From a medical point of view, he added, “the cases of Zainab and Fatima are not among the most difficult cases we encountered during the war, but they are the most difficult from a psychological and human point of view.”