MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to a very different story. In Lebanon, children have paid a heavy price in the war with Israel. Lebanon's health ministry says at least 247 children have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded since Israeli airstrikes began in March. NPR's Jane Arraf and Jawad Rizkallah spoke with a surgeon treating war-wounded children. And here's a warning. The story contains audio of an injured child in distress.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHILD CRYING)
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sitta is trying to soothe his young patient. Annabella (ph) is 12, and she's been in hospital since she was wounded in an Israeli airstrike in April.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHILD CRYING)
ARRAF: She was hit by shrapnel near her home in Southern Lebanon. The impact fractured her leg and ripped off soft tissue and nerves. She's had one operation already. Now, she's not just in pain.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHILD CRYING)
GHASSAN ABU-SITTA: (Non-English language spoken).
SABRINE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: She's so terrified that Dr. Abu-Sitta arranges for sedation so he can remove the dressing.
ABU-SITTA: War-injured child, quite traumatized. I need to take the vac sponge off.
SABRINE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Annabella is with her mother, Sabrine (ph), who asked NPR not to use their last names, so they could freely discuss the impact of her injuries and treatment.
(SOUNDBITE OF VACUUM DRESSING MACHINE RUNNING)
ARRAF: Amid the sound of a vacuum dressing machine, her mother - a schoolteacher - encourages the girl to tell us what happened.
(SOUNDBITE OF VACUUM DRESSING MACHINE RUNNING)
ANNABELLE: I was sitting on the bench. My dad came and told me that he wants to take me to the grocery.
ARRAF: Oh, the grocery store? OK.
ANNABELLE: Then I wear my clothes and went with him. (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: They walked down the stairs, and...
ANNABELLE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Everything went black. You only found yourself on the ground?
ANNABELLE: Yeah.
ARRAF: Her mother is wearing a neck brace. The blast sent a door flying into her. The family was displaced. The airstrike hit half an hour before the announcement of a ceasefire on April 16 between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
SABRINE: Before we were packaging our things, our bags, waiting for 7 o'clock to the news to go back.
ARRAF: Dr. Abu-Sitta - who's Palestinian British - treated hundreds of children wounded in the war in Gaza. Israel bars him from going back there. Here, he says he sees some of the same patterns, including airstrikes on homes.
ABU-SITTA: The wounded kids that are coming to us, we see them coming in families of wounded. And they're all in residential homes.
ARRAF: Israel says it uses precise targeting and takes care to avoid civilian casualties. But it does not explain why its strikes have killed and injured so many children. Dr. Abu-Sitta says the Israeli killings of first responders in Lebanon - more than 125 of them so far - has also lessened the chances of wounded children surviving.
ABU-SITTA: We know there are kids who've died being stuck in small hospitals that couldn't treat them and couldn't be moved.
ARRAF: He says all the injured children he treats are traumatized.
ABU-SITTA: Because home is the safest place - and so that whole world view of safety has been shattered.
ARRAF: War-wounded children with injuries far beyond physical. Jane Arraf, NPR News, Beirut.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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