You will not read this on CNN:
Ambulance driver Kayed Abu 'Okal told Asharq Al-Awsat about the horrific scene he encountered in the town of Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City: Stray dogs were feeding on the bodies of 4 civilians who were killed by an Israeli shell in the courtyard of their house 4 days earlier. The dead were 2-year-old Shahd, her 17-year-old brother Matar and 17-year-old cousin Mohamad, along with an unidentified person. Israeli troops had prevented ambulances from accessing the area for at least 4 days.
Abu 'Okal told the newspaper:
"I have seen a lot during my years of work at the Ministry of Health, especially scenes of martyrs who have been killed by Israeli occupation fire throughout the past years. But the sight that never leaves my memory is that of the innocent child from the Attar Family whose limbs were snapped off by stray dogs and only her torso remained".
Witnesses said the rest of Shahd's family members were taken prisoner by the Israeli army.
In the Times today:
The bloodied little boy being carried into the room by a neighbour was screaming at him. “Baba, baba [daddy, daddy],” the child cried.
“I did not recognise my own child because of his injuries,” recalled Arayni. “For a few seconds I couldn’t move, my knees became weak. I could barely stand at the sight of my child halfway between life and death.”
Running over he realised that both his sons – Hathifa, 7, and Abdul Rahman, 5 – were lying in his emergency room, severely wounded.
Tears streaming down his face, Arayni began working feverishly on Hathifa, who had the worst injuries. A chunk of shrapnel had pierced his chest, his right leg was broken and blood poured from his wounds.
A colleague began treating Abdul Rahman. The nerves in his broken left arm had been severed and he had no feeling in his hand. They were able to stabilise the two boys.
“I just thank God my children didn’t arrive to me in bits and pieces, missing body parts as the women and children I see arriving daily,” said Arayni, standing by Hathifa’s bedside, his face showing the exhaustion of almost two weeks of back-to-back operations. The slight, bearded surgeon had not returned home for 12 days,grab-bing a nap or a meal at the hospital when he could.
[...] The surgeon pushed aside the thought of his own children as the wounded poured in, sometimes so many that the operating floors were slick with blood. Injured men, women and children were piled in the corridors and surgeons commandeered the recovery room.
Read full article: Bloodied Gaza set for the endgame
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