Buried for 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler makes recovery

Rescuers did not expect to find two-year-old Ali Khalifeh alive after an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed his entire family and left him trapped under the rubble for 14 hours.

Amputated, bandaged and hooked to a respirator in a hospital bed that was way too big for him, “Ali is the sole survivor of his family,” says Hussein Khalifeh, his father’s uncle.

The toddler’s parents, sister and two grandmothers all perished in the strike on September 29, days after Israel intensified its attacks on Hezbollah terrorists.

The strike on Sarafand, some nine miles south of the coastal city of Sidon, flattened an apartment complex and killed 15 people, many of them relatives, according to residents.

“Rescue workers had almost lost hope of finding anyone alive under the rubble,” 45-year-old Khalifeh tells AFP from the hospital in Sidon where his two-year-old relative was being treated.

But then “Ali appeared among debris in the shovel of the bulldozer, after we all thought he had died,” he says.

“He emerged from the rubble, barely breathing, after 14 hours.”