Palestinian girls tell grim stories of survival

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Tragedy saved the life of 13-year-old Dalal Abu Aisha.

The Palestinian girl was not at home when an Israeli bomb destroyed her family's apartment in Gaza's Beach refugee camp, killing her father, mother, two brothers and a sister.

Dalal had been at her aunt's house, paying a condolence call. Her cousin, a young girl, had been killed a day earlier by tank shells that exploded in the city's main square.

"That used to be my room," Dalal said, returning on Thursday to the rubble where it once stood. She was brought there by an uncle after reporters who had heard of her suffering asked to interview her.

"My mother was killed while she carried my four-year-old sister Ghaida in her arms. The two of them were completely burned," Dalal said.

Dalal said that during the fighting she could hear shelling from Israeli naval boats offshore. Palestinian militants, she said, had fired rockets from a position at least 200 meters (yards) from her home.

A relative told Reuters the house might have been targeted because an uncle living there was a Hamas fighter. He had left with his family shortly after Israel began its offensive on December 27, saying it aimed to end rocket fire on its southern towns.

Counting her losses, Dalal took heart at the sight of an old friend.

"I found my cat, the cat my father brought," she said.

In Gaza's Shifa hospital, 15-year-old Amira Abu al-Qerem clutched a framed photograph of her dead father.

"He was killed before my eyes," Amira said, describing how an Israeli helicopter, attacking militants in Tel al-Hawa, a suburb of Gaza city, fired into her house.

Amira said she stumbled outside, looking for help, only to be wounded by another missile. She went back inside and spent the night sleeping near her father's body.

"My brother and sister went out to bring an ambulance for me and for my father, I tried to stop them, but they went anyway. I could hear them shouting and then a missile hit them and they went silent, too," she said from her hospital bed.

Amira said she slept in the street for a night, but something exploded near her and she ran for shelter into a nearby house.

"I stayed there for two days and I lived only on water," she said.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)