Destruction in Gaza
Photo: AP
Wounded Gaza girl found in abandoned home
Relatives were convinced Amira Kurim had died in same round of IDF shelling that killed her father, sister and brother, but she was found lying on mattress soaked with blood in Gaza City flat
Her relatives thought they had buried her, but Amira Kurim was found wounded and shell-shocked on Saturday in an abandoned Gaza City apartment.
Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire taking effect early Sunday after a 3-week offensive that killed nearly 1,200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian officials.
Often, members of the same family died together, huddling for safety and comfort during bombing runs. Relatives of 14-year-old Amira were convinced she had died in the same round of shelling that killed her father, sister and brother last Wednesday.
They were all fleeing fighting in the Gaza City suburb of Tel Hawwa when her father was struck down by an Israeli missile. Kurim's 11-year-old brother Alaa and 12-year-old sister Ismat rushed to find an ambulance while Amira stayed with her father.
Suddenly, another shell exploded.
"I stayed with daddy and they banged another rocket (nearby) and I was wounded," Amira told The Associated Press from her bed in Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, her face pale with shock, her lips quivering.
IDF attack in Gaza (Photo: AFP)
She limped to a nearby apartment building with a bleeding, broken leg. And there she lay for four days, until Emad Eid, a journalist for a TV channel run by the radical Lebanese Hizbullah went to survey damage to the apartment he'd fled on the first day of the Israeli assault.
Beneath shattered windows, Eid found Amira lying on a mattress soaked with blood, her pants tried around her leg in an effort to halt the bleeding.
"She didn't know where she was," Eid said. "She just moaned."
While Amira survived, her brother and sister did not. They were killed by a shell as they looked for help for their father. Medics found their bodies, along with their father's on Friday. Relatives believed that body parts found nearby were those of Amira.
Amira was reunited Saturday with her mother from whom she'd been separated for years by her parents' divorce.
