Raghad al-Assar, 12, continues to endure trauma after her house in central Gaza was bombed, killing two of her sisters.
Twelve-year-old Raghad al-Assar lay unconscious in a Gaza mortuary for eight hours after she was declared dead following an Israeli assault on her house in central Gaza final yr.
“We have been sitting in our house like everybody else when immediately bullets, planes and drones got here down on us,” she advised Al Jazeera.
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Al-Assar was saved by probability when a Palestinian man looking for his son’s physique within the morgue noticed the younger woman’s fingers transferring as she lay on a chilly slab.
“I used to be in a coma for 2 weeks, and after I wakened, my household advised me that I had been positioned within the morgue fridge,” she recounted.
Two of al-Assar’s sisters have been killed within the assault on June 8, 2024, and different members of her household have been harm as properly.
“All my household was injured, and two of my sisters have been martyred. My eldest sister’s situation is worse than mine. She will’t see in a single eye, has burns, deep wounds and abdomen issues,” al-Assar revealed.
Her story is among the many to emerge from Israel’s struggle on Gaza, which United Nations specialists have described as a genocide.
In keeping with the UN Kids’s Fund, some 64,000 kids have “reportedly been killed or maimed” in Israeli assaults on coastal Palestinian territory.
Israel’s struggle on Gaza has killed not less than 69,187 Palestinians and wounded 170,703 since its begin in October 2023.
‘Modified her into one other particular person’
Al-Assar’s father, Mohammed, was working when his home was attacked. A relative had known as to inform him what occurred.
“Information got here to me that my home was focused. I used to be at work, not at house. I rushed from work to the hospital to examine what occurred,” he mentioned.
“We went to the home to search for Raghad below the rubble. We didn’t discover any signal of her.”
After he reunited with his daughter, Mohammed observed the assault had utterly modified her.
“The incident that occurred to her modified her psychological well being and persona into one other particular person,” he defined. “There could be incidents the place we stroll on the road, the place she faints whereas we’re strolling on the road.”
Al-Assar advised Al Jazeera she suffers from nightmares and anxiousness every time she remembers the day of the assault.
“I don’t like to recollect, don’t need to hear struggle sounds, and keep away from issues that carry again reminiscences. If I hear bombing or planes, I get frightened,” she mentioned.
Her household is hoping to get al-Assar and her sister medical therapy overseas.
“I need to go overseas for therapy. That’s my dream,” al-Assar mentioned. “It’s a youngster’s proper to reside identical to different individuals overseas — for them to have play and have wellbeing.”
Two years of Israeli bombardment throughout Gaza have destroyed many well being services and killed a whole bunch of medics, ensuing within the collapse of the territory’s medical infrastructure.
Whereas Hamas and Israel agreed final month to a ceasefire, Israel continues to conduct assaults on the enclave, and not less than 260 individuals have been killed because the truce started on October 10.
