19 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Two Palestinian children were wounded when their house, in the Ameer project of Gaza City’s Soudania neighborhood, was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike early in the morning of Friday, August 19.
After the building lost power around midnight, ten-year-old Marihan Atif abu Samarah and her five-year-old brother, Moustafa, joined their family around light from a generator to wait for Suhoor, the early morning meal eaten before the daily Ramadan fast.
Shortly afterward, an Israeli missile exploded outside, demolishing an empty guard tower for a former government building nearby, as well as the family’s home, leaving only the bathroom standing.
All of the family was injured by falling rubble, but only the two children required hospitalization. Both of Marihan’s legs were broken, one seriously enough to require surgery to properly set it. Moustafa likewise needed surgery on his one broken leg.
When the family met with the International Solidarity Movement on Tuesday, their father, Atif abu Samarah, expressed hope that the children’s condition might improve enough for al-Shifa Hospital, which treated them, to release them within two days.