By Sami Abu Salem writing
from the occupied Gaza Strip
The innocent laughter of six-month-old baby
Mohammed al-Bor'i stopped forever when
shrapnel from an Israeli missile and rubble
struck the infant in the head, minutes after he
enjoyed his last meal.
"The baby sucked milk, he was playing with his mother;
I was reading a book when a rocket hit the Ministry of Interior,"
said Nasser al-Bor'i, the baby's father.
With the first missile, the electricity was cut and darkness filled the
ill-fated house. Stones and pieces of the asbestos ceiling fell onto the
head of the laughing child. The explosions continued as two
other missiles hit the building.
"I looked for my baby in the darkness between the rubble; I did not
know where he was. When he cried once I followed the direction
of his voice," Nasser al-Bor'i said. "My hands touched my baby
who was breathing hard; I felt warm liquid on my two hands and
realized that he was wounded."
Al-Bor'i carried his son to the nearby Shifa Hospital as the blood
streamed from his tiny head. In the hospital, al-Bor'i became hysterical
when he realized that his only child had been killed.
Tears poured from al-Bor'i's eyes when he saw Mohammed's shoes.
"After five years of treatment for sterility, [my wife and] I had a baby.
I can't imagine that I lost him in a second."
Toys, a plastic bike, a crib and clothes were covered by the heap
of rubble inside Mohammed's bedroom. Cutout magazine pictures of
laughing babies decorated the walls, a sad reminder of the joy lost in the strike.
Mohammed's mother sufered shock and fell unconscious when she
realized that the child had died. She laid on a hospital bed while her
baby was in the morgue. On Thursday morning she cried when she
returned home from the hospital to see Mohammed's empty crib.
Mohammed al-Bor'i was not the only child to be killed in the series of
Israeli air strikes across the Gaza strip on Wednesday. In the northern
Gaza Strip town of Jabalia, three other children, Anas al-Manama, 10,
Bilal Hijazi, 11, and Mohammed Hamada, 11, were also killed in an Israeli
air strike, Palestinian medical sources reported.
At least 19 Palestinian civilians and militants were killed and dozens wounded
by the continuing Israeli air strikes on Gaza in the last two days.
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment