New evidence of Gaza child deaths

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfT4QrqOnYM

Four-year-old Samar Abed Rabbu is a little girl with a captivating smile to melt the heart of the most hardened correspondent.






 



When we first came across her in the hospital in the Egyptian town of El-Arish, just over the border from Gaza, she was playing with an inflated surgical glove beneath the covers.  The doctors had puffed air into the glove, trying to distract her from the further pain they had to inflict inserting a drip.  Samar had been shot in the back at close range. The bullet damaged her spine, and she is unlikely to walk again. bedside, her uncle Hassan told us the family had been ordered out of their home by Israeli soldiers who were shelling the neighbourhood.  A tank had parked in front of the house, where around 30 people were taking shelter.  The women and children - mother, grandmother and three little girls - came out waving a white flag and then, he said, an Israeli soldier came out of the tank and opened fire on the terrified procession.  Samar's two sisters, aged seven and two, were shot dead. The grandmother was hit in the arm and in the side, but has survived.

 

Young victims

 

One of the most alarming features of the conflict in Gaza is the number of child casualties. More than 400 were killed. Many had shrapnel or blast injuries sustained as the Israeli army battled Hamas militants in Gaza's densely populated civilian areas.

But the head of neurosurgery at the El-Arish hospital, Dr Ahmed Yahia, told me that brain scans made it clear that a number of the child victims had been shot at close range.

 

Samar's uncle said the soldier who had shot his niece was just 15m (49ft) away. ''How could they not see they were shooting at children?'' he asked.  When we finally got into Gaza, we tried to investigate further. Finding a house, even with an address, in a neighbourhood that has been bombed into oblivion, where all landmarks have been obliterated and even the locals cannot find their bearings, is not easy.  But we eventually met a man who knew Samar's family and took us to the family house, or what was left of it.  The four-storey building has been concertinaed to the ground.

 

Father's agony

 

Khalid Abed Rabbu wears on his face all the pain of Israel's bloody three-week campaign in Gaza. In his hand he carried the teddy bear that had belonged to his daughter, Samar's six-year-old sister.  Its head had been blown off, apparently in the same burst of gunfire that had cut his daughter in half.  He described the events of that night almost identically to his brother. There were minor discrepancies, but he too believes his daughters were shot in cold blood.

"There were soldiers leaning against the tank eating crisps," he said. "But then one of them jumped down and walked towards the house with an M16 automatic rifle."

 

 

He showed me a photo of his eldest daughter under shrouds in the mortuary.

 

"What has my family done to Israel," he cried. "What has Samar done to deserve all this pain?"

 

We have put the family's allegations to the Israelis. So far they have told us that they can not comment on specific cases.  Their spokesman said they had made every effort to limit civilian casualties but were fighting a terrorist organisation that often uses the civilian population as cover.

 

Troubled neighbourhood

 

The Israelis say is evidence that on many occasions when civilians were killed their troops had been responding to incoming fire.  There are reports of the neighbourhood where the family lived, known as Ezbat Abed Rabbu, had been used by militant fighters in the past. During an incursion in the spring of 2008 the Israelis took over Khalid's house for two days.  But Khalid insists he is not Hamas, he is not a fighter. He said he worked for the Palestinian Authority and is a member of Fatah, Hamas's political rivals. "There were no fighters here," he added, picking up crisp bags printed with Hebrew lettering that the soldiers seemed to have left behind.

 

"Do you think soldiers eat crisps sitting on their tanks when there is incoming fire?"

 

Samar's father and her uncle have not spoken to each other since she left Gaza for treatment in Egypt, yet in separate interviews they told us the three girls were outside the house, in plain view, when they were shot.  We toured the part of Jabaliya where the Abed Rabbus lived. In an area that must cover at least a square mile, there are no houses left - no mosques, no factories and no orchards. The entire neighbourhood has been devastated.  It may be true that fighters were hiding in the alleys of Jabaliya. It is possible that rockets were being fired from here towards Israel.

 

But for the people who lived here, this is a story of wanton destruction. The world must now decide whether the Israeli action here was justified under the rules of war.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday, 22 January, 2009 at 1100 GMT on BBC Radio 4

Injured children treated in Egypt

Doctors say Samer Abdrabo may never walk again

Some of the worst cases of injured children are being allowed into Egypt through the Rafah crossing for emergency treatment.

 

According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, more than 300 children have been killed and around 1400 injured in the current conflict. They include four-year-old Samar Abed Rabbu- she is said to have been shot in the back by an Israeli soldier.  Her spinal chord has been severed and she will probably never walk again.

 

"I was hit by a bullet," Samar tells me, clutching her teddy bear. "The Israeli soldiers shot me while I was on the steps with my little sister."

 

Samer's uncle, Hassan Abed Rabbu, has accompanied her to El-Arish hospital, close to the Egypt-Gaza border.

 

Caught in the crossfire?

 

He says the family home in the town of Jabaliya, south of Gaza City, was being shelled and they were ordered to leave by an Israeli patrol.  According to Hassan, he shouted at the Israelis in Hebrew telling them that there were children in the house. But as his mother left the house with her three grandchildren, he says the Israelis opened fire from close range, injuring Samar and killing her two sisters.

 

"One was two years old, her corpse was riddled with bullets," he tells me.

"The older girl was six, her body was severed at the waist by the heavy shooting. Samar was left bleeding on the street for three hours before we could reach her." 

In every room along the corridor there is a story of suffering and grief.

But what particularly disturbs the Egyptian medics is the number of gunshot wounds they are seeing.  Some believe that children are not simply being caught in the crossfire between the advancing Israeli army and the militants returning fire.

 

"When you have a child who has two bullets in his head, how do you explain to me how these bullets came to his head?" asks team leader on the Palestinian ward, Dr Ayman Abdul Hadi.  "It is not easy to answer because it is not only one child. There are many children."

 

Entry wounds

 

Four of the children moved to El-Arish were shot in the head.

I was shown the CT scans of Nour Thabit, aged 10, Anas Haref, 9, Nour Sami Shgier, 10 and 14-year-old, Mohz Yosef.  All arrived on mechanical ventilators and remain in comas at other hospitals in Egypt.

Bullets are easy to distinguish from shrapnel wounds

The head of neurosurgery, Dr Ahmed Yahia, says bullets can easily be distinguished from blast wounds.

 

"You will find this round white shape, you see a very different trauma to those hit by shrapnel in an explosion," he explains. "If you have a small entry wound this means the bullet is shot from very nearby because it has come out of the gun at high speed."

 

 

Dr Yahia illustrates the point by showing me the picture of one boy who has been shot through the front of the head.  There is a small entry wound but a dark shadow around the bullet.  His brain has been badly damaged and he will probably never wake up. 

 

The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have raised concerns about civilian casualties in this war, but the facts are hard to verify independently.  The Israeli government insists it is doing all it can to protect the innocent.

 

"Hamas has adopted tactics that have deliberately endangered the Palestinian population in Gaza," said Mark Regev, the Israeli government spokesman.  "When you put bombs in schools, when you put rockets in private dwellings, when they fight, they use the civilian population as human shield." 

At El-Arish hospital, a psychiatrist comforts 13-year-old, Ahmed Soumani. The shrapnel is embedded in his chest, lungs and kidney. It is hard to console a little boy in so much pain.  The wounds of some of these young patients may well heal but it is the psychological damage, and the hatred born out of this conflict, which will be much harder to treat.