Miracle girl is rescued from burning school as mum and siblings killed

A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD girl who was miraculously rescued from a burning school hit by an Israeli airstrike had to be told her mother and five siblings had been killed in the attack.

- BY KEITH FALKINER

Little Verd al-Sheikh Khalil survived the attack on the Fahmi al-Jarjawi School in Gaza City, a shelter for displaced Palestinians, along with her father in Gaza City yesterday morning after the massive Israeli airstrike saw several children burned alive.

At least 32 people were killed and another 55 injured some of them left with horrendous burns.

Over the weekend in Gaza, the bodies of 79 people killed by a fresh wave of strikes had been taken to hospitals before the deadly strike on the school.

The dead over the past day in Israel's renewed military offensive included nine of one doctor's 10 children, horrified colleagues and the health ministry said.

Alaa Najjar, a paediatrician at Nasser Hospital, was on duty at the time and ran home to find her family's house on fire, said Ahmad al-Farra, head of the hospital's paediatric department.

Ms Najjar's husband was severely wounded and their only surviving child, an 11-year-old boy, was in a critical condition after Friday's strike in the southern city of Khan Younis, Mr Farra said.

The dead children ranged in age from seven months to 12 years old. Khalil Al-Dokran, a spokesman for Gaza's health ministry, said two of the children remained under the rubble.

Yesterday at the school in Gaza City Faris Afana, the ambulance service manager for Northern Gaza, said he arrived at the scene with crews to find the school ablaze.

He said: "There were sleeping children and women in those classrooms.

"Some of them were screaming but we couldn't rescue them due to the fires."