Israel strike leaves woman footballer in coma

Celine Haidar’s dream of becoming a professional footballer was shattered due to Israel brutalities, as she ended up in a medically induced coma.

The 19-year-old rising star and her family were among the millions victims of Israel bombing in south Beirut.

“But Celine had to come back to (south) Beirut for her studies and training,” her father Abbas Haidar told AFP.

“She would leave the house after evacuation calls were issued or bombing intensified, then she’d come back home at night to sleep,” he said.

Now, she is the latest athlete to become a casualty of Israeli strikes.

Haidar said on Saturday he warned her daughter of new evacuation orders published by the Israeli military online and she left the house.

But soon after, “my wife called to tell me Celine was in the hospital,” he said.

She had been seriously wounded in an Israeli strike on her home neighbourhood of Shiyah, as the air force pummelled Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Footages show her lying unconscious on the ground with her face covered in blood.

“The strike was close and she was hit in the head,” her mother Sanaa Sharhour told AFP. “My daughter has a brain haemorrhage, her skull is cracked.”

Despite that Sanaa was hopeful about her daughter’s recovery. “My daughter is a heroine, she will get up.”

“She dreamt of competing abroad. She said she wanted to be like (Cristiano) Ronaldo and (Lionel) Messi… She wanted to be a star and for everyone to talk about her.

“Now everyone is talking about her because she was wounded in a war that she has nothing to do with.

“They killed her dream.”