4-year-old firebombing victim–'Where are my parents?'

Ahmad Dawabsha’s grandfather says boy ‘remembers everything’ from attack that killed his brother, father

Times of Israel

The four-year-old Palestinian boy badly hurt in a firebombing at his West Bank home spoke for the first time Sunday and asked for his parents, the boy’s grandfather said.

Ahmad Dawabsha was critically injured in a suspected Jewish terrorist attack on the family home in the Palestinian village of Duma on July 31. His father Saad and 18-month-old brother Ali were killed in the attack.

The mother of the family, Riham, remains in critical condition at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, outside Tel Aviv.

“The first thing he asked was ‘Where’s mom?’” Hussein Dawabsha, the boy’s grandfather, told reporters. “I don’t know how to answer him. He remembers everything.”

Ahmad is still in serious condition following the torching of his home, with burns to most of his body.

The boy was fully conscious and breathing independently, Dr. Gidi Porat, director of the pediatric intensive care unit, said. “He’s being treated with anesthetics and it’s heartening to see him hug his family, listen to stories,” Porat said. “It’s a slow process that he’ll internalize alone and ask, and we’re preparing him for the full misfortune.”

The grandfather said the boy remembers that he asked his father, Saad, to open the door to his room while the house was on fire, and understood the consequences of the attack.

“I’m burned, they burned me,” the grandfather recounted him saying.

A delegation of religious leaders from an international peace organization came to visit the grandfather at the hospital Sunday.

Ali was burned to death in the attack. Thousands of people on Saturday attended the funeral of Saad Dawabsha, who succumbed earlier in the day to the massive injuries he sustained in the firebombing.

The killings prompted a crackdown on extreme right-wing Jewish groups and the incarceration of three individuals without trial.