Nurses carefully removed the bandage from Hussein Aidibi's foot. The 15-year-old tried to put on a brave face but a tremor ran through his body, making his toes twitch. His piercing blue eyes froze. Hussein was admitted to the burn unit at Geitaoui Hospital in central Beirut on September 23, with second- and third-degree burns to his torso, arms and lower limbs.

Dr. Ziad Sleiman, one of the unit's plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgeons, told him the good news. On Friday, October 4, Hussein will be discharged. All that remains are small wounds in five or six places. His skin is peeling, leaving large marbled marks on his body. "Hussein is healing on his own. All he needs now are dressings for these small areas, which he can deal with on an outpatient basis," said Dr Sleiman.

The teenager's father, Abbas, has come to see him every day. Hussein is all he has left, the only survivor of the Israeli bombing that destroyed their building in Jbal Al-Botm, in the southern Lebanese suburb of Sour, on September 23. "It was half past noon. I was outside the house. We were about to leave. Israel bombed our building. It collapsed. Fourteen people died, including my wife and my four other children, aged between 4 and 13," said the 36-year-old father.

Mislaid bodies

"This is how Israel is acting: rather than pursuing [Hezbollah] fighters, they're bombing civilians," continued Aidibi. There was a further addition to the drama he experienced on that first day of a campaign of intensive Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon and the Bekaa plain: the Sour hospital mislaid the body of his daughter along with those of three other young girls, being overwhelmed by the influx of wounded and casualties - 72 dead.

In the cubicle adjoining Hussein's, a woman screamed in pain as bandages were changed, then let out a long, exhausted sigh. Her entire body, with the exception of her face, received third-degree burns from a shell that fell in the garden where she was staying with other members of her family. The latter have also been hospitalized in the burn unit.

The woman's skin has been blackened. "There's still viable tissue under the skin. We're not considering amputation yet. Next week, she'll go into surgery to have the blackened skin removed," said Dr. Sleiman. He estimated her chances of survival at 50%. If she does survive, her treatment will last a minimum of three months.

"There are so many stories, each more catastrophic than the last," continued the plastic surgeon. One of his patients, with 95% burns, is on the verge of death. His burns exceed the third degree. "The fourth degree is bone. It means amputation of limbs because the substance of the muscle is affected," said Dr. Pierre Yared, director of Geitaoui University Hospital.

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