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Narjis Faqih, 3,
above, a Shia, was in a three-car convoy fleeing the south Lebanon
village of Aytaroun on July 19 when it was attacked by two jets.
Five members of her family died, including her father. She has not
uttered a word since. Her grandmother, Khadija Awada, says the last
sound Narjis made was a cry to her father who was sitting in front
of her as a sheet of flame ripped through the car. Now she sits
motionless, never taking her eyes off her mother, Lena Mostafa, 29,
who lies seriously injured in the next bed. The grandmother says:
“How can I tell her that she’ll never see her Dad again?” Everything
they owned was incinerated. The hospital has given her toys, but she
won’t touch them.
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Miriam Yehia Mrouh, 75, a
Shia grandmother, rose at 4.30am on July 23 to pray when a rocket hit her home
at Haloussiye, south Lebanon. Only six out of fifteen family members there
survived. She has severe wounds to her head and legs. One of her sons and his
five children were killed. “This is our punishment for being peaceful neighbours.
I didn’t hate Israel. Now I do,” she says.
Maytham Balhas,
19, is a Shia student. His house at Sadageen in the south was flattened at
4.30am on July 18 when his family were asleep. It was only as he was fleeing
that he noticed his right arm was almost severed at the elbow, hanging by the
skin. He insists Hezbollah fighters were not sheltering in his village. “I am
not a fighter, but I promise if I can get out of this bed, I will be.”
Ahmed Ali,
45, a Shia taxi driver, lost both his legs when a missile struck his home at
Blida on July 19. His family were sheltering in a basement. Six of them were
injured and are at the Rafik Hariri hospital in Beirut. Among them is his
daughter, Fatma, who has just turned 12. “What kind of father can I be to my
children now ?” he asks.
Ghadir Shaito,
15, a Shia schoolgirl, cannot speak because of injuries to her jaw and mouth.
Her face is pitted with shrapnel and badly burnt. On July 23 the minibus that
relatives in Beirut had sent to collect 18 of her family stranded in Tyre was
bombed, killing three on board. She doesn’t know what happened to her father,
who gave up his seat to an elderly neighbour. |
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