ALEY, Lebanon — Rabab Youssef lost her six-year-old daughter in the Israeli massacre in Qana. But, this never took in her stride, insisting to save lives of other victims caught under the rubble.
"I was calling out to her: 'Where are you Zeinab?' I heard no reply. I found the hand of a child raised up," said Rabab, drawing a deep breath and holding back tears.
"I felt her and I knew she was dead. I said: 'My child, I can't help you.'"
Rabab's daughter, Zeinab, was among 60 civilians, including 37 children, killed on Sunday, July 30, in an Israeli air strike on a three-storey building in the southern village of Qana.
Rabab managed to save her four-year-old son, Hassan, from under the rubble.
"He was half covered in rubble. I was too, but I could move my hands. I started throwing the rubble off my son," said Rabab.
"The neighbors came to see if there was anyone they could help. I said: 'My son -- take him,'" she added.
The Lebanese mother then dug herself out of the debris. Her disabled father was laying face down, calling for help.
"I pulled him up as much as I could so he could breathe," she said.
Rabab then rescued a neighbor.
"If there had been light, I could have looked, searched, helped someone. I didn't collapse or cry. True my daughter had been martyred, but I felt very strong," she said.
Up to 900 Lebanese people, third of whom are children, have been killed since Israel launched a wide-scale blitz in Lebanon on the pretext of seeking the release of two soldiers taken prisoner by Hizbullah.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday, August 3, accused Israel of committing war crimes and deliberately targeting civilians in its offensive in Lebanon.
Killers
Rabab's son, Hassan, fell asleep while being rushed away by neighbors.
"They thought he had died. They put him in a room and wrapped him in sheets. He was still alive, just sleeping. He later asked: 'Why did you leave me?'"
Lebanese rescue workers did not reach Qana until daybreak due to the relentless Israeli air raids.
"There were many children who died of suffocation," Rabab said.
She said the Israeli air strikes on roads and bridges had prevented her family as well as other civilians from leaving the area.
"They cut us off from the world," she averred.
Israeli war planes made daily flights over Qana and must have spotted women coming and going from the building, she said.
"We say to Israel; 'You killed us on purpose' and America gave cover to the killers."
The Bush administration has backed the Israeli blitz in Lebanon, resisting calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Washington, which sees the Lebanese resistance group as a terrorist group, drew rebuke across the Arab and Muslim world for shipping arms and laser-guided bombs to Israel during the current war.
"If they think Hizbullah are terrorists, then what would you call those who killed us? They think that they support human rights -- let them see what's happening in south Lebanon," Rabab fumed.
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-08/04/03.shtml