Israel shot my little sister during the Gaza ceasefire

An Israeli sniper shot my six-year-old sister at a family friend’s wedding in northern Gaza during the ceasefire on November 3.

In the Daraj quarter, far from the Israel-controlled yellow area, Sundus was playing on the first floor of a wedding hall with other kids, happy with her new clothes, while the wedding itself was taking place upstairs.
Suddenly, she collapsed.

Shouts filled the hall on the second floor. Bullets whistled loudly among the guests. One bullet hit the bridesmaid in the jaw, and another hit the groom’s cousin in her shoulder. The bride’s white dress turned red — the wedding stopped before anyone danced.

Maria, my seven-year-old sister, came running. “Sundus is sleeping on the ground and won’t wake up.”

Mum ran to the first floor, searching everywhere for Sundus, but found only a pool of blood. Her phone rang, “We are in the Baptist Hospital [al-Ahli Arab Hospital]. Come quickly,” her brother Ali said.

“An Israeli sniper shot the child Sundus Hillis in the head,” the news circulated as we were on the way to the hospital. We knew nothing about our little one.

When we arrived, Sundus was lying in a hospital bed. Blood covered her beautiful face, staining the makeup and the colourful clothes she had been overjoyed to wear.

“Sundus, oh love. Wake up,” Mum begged her, but she only groaned weakly.

“Two bullets in her head,” a nurse inspecting Sundus’s injury told Mum.

Two holes, one bullet, and some parts of the brain lost, the medical report showed.
Before she entered the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), the neurosurgeon tapped her right hand – she unconsciously moved it. But when he tapped her left hand and leg, nothing moved.

Sundus underwent a three-hour-long surgery and remained in the ICU. We were permitted to visit for only 15 minutes. When I first entered the room, the doctor guided me to a child with a swollen face and a bandaged head, tubes everywhere, who bore very little resemblance to my beautiful Sundus.

One day passed, and Sundus was still kept in the ICU until another patient in critical condition needed the bed, and she was moved to the inpatient ward.

She finally woke up after two days, unable to see or move the left side of her body. No matter how much I talked to her, the only response I got was loud cries.

She was rubbing her face, trying to look at anything but failing. “My eyes are crossed … I can’t see anything. Why have you made me like this?” she would shout.

The wedding she had been looking forward to for days had disappeared from her memory. In her mind, she is still sleeping in our cousins’ shelter, where she was before the wedding hall.
Hung by blockade
A few days after the surgery, Sundus was able to feel the brightness of light. She was able to see apparitions sometimes; at other times, she was unable to see at all.

When she sensed the disappointment in our voices, she started guessing. That the red butterfly was blue or that the pink doll was a pink rose.

I saw Sundus get angry at herself because she couldn’t move, then burst into tears – it’s a loop she suffers daily.

The neurosurgeon had no clear answers for us when we asked whether she would return to her normal self. A simple “inshallah” was his answer for all questions.

We had to face him several times with specific questions to get a clear answer.