“He hasn’t spoken for 2 weeks,” Lebanon child loses limbs, his entire family in Israeli strike

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, who witnessed the devastating impact of the Israeli military offensive on children in Gaza, shared his profound dismay after meeting a two-year-old child in Lebanon who had not only lost his limbs but also his entire family in an Israeli attack. 

Elder expressed his shock, saying that as the violence intensifies, these heart-wrenching stories continue to emerge one after another.

“I don’t know whether to scream or to cry,” he said, adding, “When I first visited Gaza a year ago, I encountered a story I never imagined possible.” He recounted visiting a bombed hospital where a caretaker whispered to him that the boy he was looking at had lost his entire family in an Israeli strike.

Elder, deeply shaken, said, “I had never heard such a thing, and I didn’t imagine I ever would. Now, I have heard it dozens of times.”

In Lebanon, Elder described sitting beside another injured child, Ali, whose body was covered in bandages and who had lost his limbs after spending 14 hours trapped under rubble from an Israeli bombardment. 

x.com

“I don't know whether to scream or to cry.”

Earlier this week, our spokesperson, @‌1james_elder, met two-year-old Ali in Beirut, Lebanon.

Ali was buried under rubble for 14 hours after his home collapsed in an airstrike. His entire family was killed in the war.

Ceasefire now. pic.twitter.com/dXw84RM9Hm

— UNICEF (@UNICEF) November 14, 2024

“He has not spoken for two weeks due to the trauma,” Elder noted, explaining that Ali has only been able to open up to a child psychologist.

Despite his young age, Ali has learned from the psychologist that he has lost his mother, father, sister, grandmother, and entire family.

“We have to ask ourselves, are those with power, those with influence to stop this really going to watch in silence again? While these horrors play out again?,” Elder left a haunting question for world leaders, challenging their silence amid the horrors children face in Palestine and Lebanon.