Father describes the moment Israeli missile caused third-degree burns to daughter

This story contains some harrowing details

Ivana’s family is about to flee their home in southern Lebanon. Israeli missiles got there first. The two-year-old now has third-degree burns on nearly half his body. Her head and arms were bandaged.

Ivana lies on a full-size bed in the burns unit of Beirut’s Geitaoui Hospital, looking lost. She was small and doll-like, but her cries were all too real. As she winced in pain, her father, Mohammed Skaki, slapped her face in an attempt to distract her.

He told how his daughter’s skin and flesh melted.

It was noon on September 23, and Israel began a massive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, paving the way for the invasion a week later. The Israeli army gave no specific evacuation orders to his area, but the explosions were getting closer.

“We’re ready to move, we’ve packed our stuff,” Mohammed said.

“The strike was very close, about 10 meters from our house, right near the front door. The house shook. My daughters were playing on the balcony. I saw the little one – she was all black from the missile dust. I was holding her and something exploded in the house and the ceiling fell down.

In an instant, the family was ripped from its roots in the town of Deir Kanunnahr. “We left home with only our cell phones and fifty dollars,” he said.

Rescuers rushed Ivana and her sister Raghav to the hospital. The seven-year-old’s injuries were minor. She has been discharged from the hospital and is taking refuge with relatives.

Mohamed showed me a photo of Ivana before her strike—her brown eyes wide open, a pink pacifier in her mouth, her face framed by brown curls. The rest of her hair was now invisible beneath the bandages. Her scars will likely stay with her for the rest of her life.

But she is recovering well, according to Dr. Ziad Sleiman, one of the unit’s two plastic surgeons.

And Ivana also brought some healing to the therapists.

“She’s just so kind. She’s so sweet and so calm,” he said with a warm smile. “Even when we change the dressing, she doesn’t yell. She looks at everything around her. So, she sees everyone and I think she knows everything. She is, indeed, a special, special baby. She is so brave. , so strong.

She is being closely monitored by burn unit staff. It is arranged in a circle, with nurses in the center so they have direct view into each of the eight rooms. There is already a long queue of patients waiting to be admitted.

“We get calls every day to transfer patients,” Dr. Slayman said. “We can’t take everyone. We try to take care of babies, women, patients with severe burns and trauma and give them the best chance of treatment.

Most patients suffered third-degree burns. For fourth-degree burns, he said “you see a black limb, like a piece of wood” and there is no treatment except amputation.

Lebanon’s health system itself has been a victim of the war, under attack from Israel. The United Nations World Health Organization has verified 23 attacks on health care in the past month, resulting in 72 deaths.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health recorded “55 enemy attacks on hospitals and 201 attacks on emergency medical technicians”. The report said Israeli attacks on medical staff, facilities and institutions were “blatant violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and the Geneva Conventions”.

In recent days we have reported from the site of an Israeli airstrike, across the road from Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s largest public hospital in Beirut. Several residential buildings were razed to the ground and 18 people died, four of them children. No warning was given.

The Israel Defense Forces told the BBC they were targeting “Hezbollah, a terrorist organization” which they claimed was “using ambulances and other medical infrastructure”. They deny targeting health care workers.

As of now, more than 30 staff in the burn department are still going to work every day. None of them have been displaced, but a new normal has emerged in Beirut – traffic jams by day and bomb attacks by night. This takes its toll.

“Honestly, it’s very difficult to deal with patients who have suffered trauma and burns from war,” Dr. Sleiman said. “We have no soldiers here; all the victims are civilians. We have ladies, we have girls, we have babies. This is not their business, their war. As doctors we have to be strong. But we have hearts. We have children .

Before leaving, I asked Ivana’s father if he had anything to say to those who murdered his little daughter. He thought for a moment, then answered in a cautious, tired voice.

“I’m not happy. Soldiers are soldiers, not civilians. These are children, babies,” he said, referring to Ivana. “I’m not happy, but what can I do? I don’t want to be a murderer like them.

Ivana has undergone skin graft surgery on her lower limbs and is expected to be discharged from the hospital in about 10 days. Her family remains displaced. They are unable to return to their homes in the south, which has been heavily bombarded by Israel.

Dr. Suleiman fears there will be more Ivanas.

He could not see the end of the war. If it did come, he believed there would be no victory. for anyone.

“No war ends with a winner,” he said. “Every war ends with losers. Everyone loses.