After weeks in hospital, Bedouin girl wounded in Iran attack makes TV appearance
7-year-old Amina Hassouna speaks in front of camera hours before her fourth surgery, while her struggling family faces repeated demolition orders
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
A seven-year-old Bedouin girl who was seriously injured in a massive Iranian missile attack in mid-April spoke last week in front of a television camera, her first public appearance since her hospitalization.
A crew from Kan news visited Amina Hassouna at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, and asked her a few simple questions in Arabic, such as “How old are you?” “Where are you now?” and “What is the name of your schoolteacher?”
Amina weakly uttered a few words in response, and was also shown interacting with a medical clown and blowing soap bubbles.
In a phone interview with The Times of Israel, her father Muhammad said that Amina has been out of her coma since two weeks after the attack, and began speaking a few days after. On Thursday, a day after her appearance on television, she underwent her fourth surgery, a 10-hour procedure.
She has not awakened yet, her father said, but is breathing on her own and doctors say it’s a matter of days before she regains consciousness. They cannot yet predict when she will be released from the hospital, he added.
Hassouna, from the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Fura near Arad, was seriously wounded by shrapnel from an intercepted ballistic missile that fell directly on her family’s home during the Iranian assault on the night of April 13-14.
אחרי שהייתה על סף מוות: הילדה שנפצעה במתקפה האיראנית פקחה את עיניה – כשמשפחתה נאבקת בצו הריסה#חדשותהערב @Itsik_zuarets pic.twitter.com/y6GlUcwzs2
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 28, 2024
Iran launched more than 300 drones, rockets and missiles, the vast majority of which were struck down by Israel and its allies, in its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory.
Hassouna was the only serious casualty in the attack.
Like many unrecognized Bedouin villages in the area, Al-Fura lacks bomb shelters that could have kept the girl safe. Ten days after the attack, the village received its first two shelters from a private donation, one placed outside the Hassounas’ home, the other in a public area accessible to all residents.
Her latest surgery was carried out in the wake of another tragic event for the family. Muhammad Hassouna voluntarily burned down his camel stable, which was under a demolition order, to avoid paying a hefty NIS 30,000 (about $8,000) fine.
The family home had also been under a demolition order, which was scrapped in early May following media backlash. Muhammad Hassouna said the measure was only suspended.
Unrecognized Bedouin villages are regularly served with demolition orders as they are built without permits. However, many have existed on the same plots of land for generations, sometimes after being evicted by Israeli authorities from other areas.
Securing building permits for Bedouin communities is nearly impossible and their leadership regularly accuses the state of discriminatory practices and neglect.
The elder Hassouna’s dramatic decision to torch the stable came while he was in the hospital with his daughter the day before her surgery, according to an account published by the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages of the Negev (RCUV).
RCUV said he received a phone call from one of his sons who said a demolition order had been placed on a wooden post in the family home’s yard. Upon hearing the news, his nerves collapsed.
He rushed home, released the animals and burned the whole stable. He did not take the time to read the notice hanging from the post, which said that in fact, the demolition order had been suspended until August 30.
המבנה הבוער הוא סככת הגמלים של מוחמד אלחסוני, אביה של אמינה. הוא זה שהצית אותה.
הוא היה במתח כבר מהבוקר. מחר צפויה אמינה לעבור ניתוח מורכב של שמונה שעות לסגירת האזור הפגוע בראשה, אחרי שנדחה בשבוע בגלל חום. ההמתנה מורטת עצבים ולא חסרות דאגות אחרות. כבר כמה שבועות שהוא מהרהר בבית… pic.twitter.com/zG5vPStH2a
— המועצה האזורית לכפרים הלא מוכרים בנגב (@rcuvnegev) May 28, 2024
In his interview with The Times of Israel, Muhammad Hassouna said that after setting fire to the structure, he fainted and was taken by ambulance to Soroka, the same hospital where his daughter Amina was, hours before her surgery.
He sounded very aggrieved by the self-inflicted loss of a valuable family property and the threat of additional fines. “The camels are now roaming freely around the house. If one of them walks on the road and causes an accident, or gets into a nearby village, I’ll be in trouble. Every day, I need to keep one of my children home from school to look after the camels. I have nowhere to put them.”
To him, the attitude of Israeli authorities added insult to injury. “The fact that Amina lies in the hospital doesn’t interest them,” he said. “[Israeli authorities] do whatever they want. They enter our home without forewarning, don’t call me, don’t speak with me. They have been here three times, never called me in advance.”
He also told RCUV that the room where Amina was hit by the rocket shrapnel is no longer in use, as his other children refuse to sleep there. He has been considering tearing it down and rebuilding it, but hesitates for fear of another demolition order.
