a wounded child spends two days in an abandoned home
Sunday January 18, 2009 00:33
by Maan News Agency - Translated by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC 
Amira, is a Palestinian child who fled her home after the army shelled it and took shelter in a nearby home bleeding and scared for two days without food and without anyone who can take care of her wounds.
Amira rushed to hospital - Image by Maan News Agency
She was hiding in this empty home, as its owners had to leave it due to the Israeli shelling. She wrapped herself with some sheets and laid on a bed in the ground floor while crying and listening to the sounds of bombs, tanks and fighter-jets.
When she was found two days later, she was nearly dead after losing so much blood. The 15-year old Amira saw her father and two brothers getting killed by the shell that struck their home before she ran out seeking shelter.
Yet, when she was found, she told the owner of the home she was hiding in, “forgive me, uncle, for I entered your home without your permission”. No one knows how she managed to phrase this sentence after witnessing the death of her family and after spending two days, bleeding and in constant fear.
Her mom though that she was the only survivor, she though all of her children were killed and buried under the rubble, and could not believe it when she finally knew that her daughter is still among the living.
The child escaped after the Israeli tanks rolled into Tal Al Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City. She was hiding in that abandoned home, listening to the sounds of the tanks and their shells. She remained hiding, soaked in blood and tears.
She told the man who saved her, the owner of the house, that she does not know how she ended in his home.
“I don't' know how I came here, uncle, they [the soldiers] killed by father and brothers in front of me, they also fired a shell at me as I was running away, and I was injured in my leg, I had to escape as they fired another shell and I found your front door opened, so I just rushed in seeking shelter”, she said, “I remained here, sitting on a bed, listening to the shelling, I was unable to say anything, I was unable to scream, I was bleeding and in sharp pain”.
Everybody though that Amira was dead, her father Fathi Daoud Al Qarm, 42, her brothers Ismat and Ala' 12 and 11, were killed as the army shelled their home and her mother was wounded.
After learning that her daughter was still alive, the mother rushed to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza, crying and shouting until she lost consciousness. She thought that she lost all of her family, as only one day before her daughter was found, the residents buried the severely mutilated bodies of her family in one grave.
The rolling tanks shelled every home there, soldiers did not hesitate in shelling homes and civilian facilities, they rolled their racist tanks driven by their racist mentality that only seeks death to any living Palestinian soul.
