Four children and the cost of war

CNN.com - Four children and the cost of war - Jul 24, 2006:

TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- The last time I sat down to write something, it was about the cost of war. As I looked ahead to the coming days, the last words I wrote were: Who will die?

Today, I found out.

Standing in front of this 8-year-old boy lying in a hospital bed, the "conflict in the Middle East" and the "cost of war" seem endless and suffocating. His pain cannot possibly be imagined as he shakes uncontrollably in and out of shock. He has blood coming from his eyes.

His name is Mahmood Monsoor and he is horribly burned. In the hospital bed next to him is his 8-month-old sister, Maria -- also burned. Screaming at the top of her lungs is the children's mother, Nuhader Monsoor. She is standing over her baby, looking at her son -- and probably thinking of her dead husband. The smell of burned flesh is overwhelming.

This story, for the Monsoor family, started out as a typical one, probably one that most of us have experienced. They had simply gone on a family vacation to some lovely sunny beaches, but these beaches were in southern Lebanon.

The six of them, like thousands of others, were fleeing the fighting -- trying to get north, waving white flags, when an Israeli bomb or missile slammed into their car. (Watch how the littlest victims are suffering -- 2:54. Viewer discretion is advised.)

The father, Mohammed Monsoor, was killed instantly. His children all were wounded. His wife, who is now crying over two of the wounded children, was in the best physical condition. But as would be the case for any mother and wife, her life, in many ways, ended the minute the car exploded into flames.

The other two Monsoor children, Ahmed, 15, and Ali, 13, are in surgery. Doctors can't tell me if they will make it. They walk away, their heads shaking. Optimism is not a word that breathes truth in this place. [full article]

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