Bomb in Gaza's rubble wounds 6-year-old twins

Children are badly injured in the latest casualty from leftover ordnance of Israel war.

- BY ABDEL KAREEM HANA AND SAMY MAGDY

NABIL SHORBASI, 6, who was injured by unexploded ordnance along with her brother, lies on a hospital bed in Gaza City on Saturday.

(ABDEL KAREEM HANA Associated Press)

The Shorbasi family was sitting in their severely damaged house in Gaza City, enjoying the relative calm of the ceasefire.

Then they heard an explosion and rushed outside to find their 6-yearold twins bleeding on the ground.

The boy, Yahya, and his sister, Nabila, had discovered a round object while playing. One touch, and it went off.

"It was like a toy," their grandfather, Tawfiq Shorbasi, said of the unexploded ordnance, after the children were rushed to Shifa Hospital on Friday. "It was extremely difficult."

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are seizing the chance to return to what's left of their homes under the ceasefire that began Oct. 10. But the dangers are far from over as people, including children, sift through the rubble for what remains of their belongings, and for bodies unreachable until now.

Shorbasi said the family had returned home after the ceasefire took hold. Gaza City had been the focus of the final Israeli military offensive before the deal was reached between Israel and Hamas.