Palestinian boy suffers extreme burns after Israeli assault

Nuseirat. 4-year-old Mahmoud Abdel Athim al-Saafin wakes up screaming in ache from burns sustained in an Israeli assault on a faculty the place his household had taken refuge within the Gaza Strip, his father Abdel Athim al-Saafin mentioned.

His two-year-old sister, Maysar, was killed within the July 14 assault on the Nuseirat refugee camp, Saafin mentioned. Her physique was so badly burned that it appeared like “a bit of coal,” he mentioned.

Either side of Mahmoud’s face had been burned, the pores and skin uncooked and pink from his scalp to his neck. Each of his legs and one among his arms had been utterly bandaged as he lay on a mattress in a crowded hospital ward, the place Reuters noticed him sleeping fitfully.

The boy later sat up in mattress, visibly in ache as his father fanned his wounds with a bit of cardboard.

Saafin mentioned the painkillers given to Mahmoud lasted a couple of hours earlier than they wore off. “Then we beg for an injection, a sedative or painkiller or a sleeping medicine so the kid can sleep,” she mentioned.

Describing the July 14 assault, Saafin mentioned he had been serving to youngsters who had been burned by a primary missile strike when a second strike precipitated “huge destruction.”

“After we began to tug our youngsters out from below the rubble, we discovered all of them burned,” she mentioned.

Little Mahmoud noticed his sister’s physique. “‘My sister is burned, Dad,'” Saafin recollects the boy saying.

Gaza well being officers say 17 individuals had been killed and 80 wounded within the July 14 Israeli airstrike on the Abu Oreiban college, which was housing displaced individuals in Nuseirat in central Gaza. The varsity is run by UNRWA, the U.N. company for Palestinian refugees.

The Israeli navy declined to touch upon the daddy’s statements. It mentioned it launched the assault towards militants working within the space of ​​the varsity and took precautions, together with utilizing correct munitions to cut back civilian casualties. Israel says Hamas fighters are in charge for the hurt precipitated to civilians by working amongst them, which the militants deny.

UNRWA Commissioner-Normal Philippe Lazzarini mentioned in a July 17 assertion on X that not less than eight colleges had been attacked within the Gaza Strip within the earlier 10 days, six of them UNRWA colleges.