Last update - 00:00 27/02/2008
Sderot boy injured by rocket to undergo further operations
By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent
The 10-year-old Sderot boy who was wounded Monday when fragments of a Qassam rocket struck his shoulder remains in serious condition, doctors at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon said Tuesday, and he has been put into isolation due to fear of infection.
Yossi Haimov is slated to undergo another operation for shoulder bone reconstruction once his situation improves. The doctors are planning to wait at least two days to decide when they will be able to operate.
Since Haimov's hospitalization, his family has been staying at a hotel in Ashkelon and spending most of the time in the hospital.
Haimov's sister Maria walked back and forth Tuesday between her brother's hospital bed and her mother and aunt, who were maintaining a vigil in a nearby waiting area. Asked whether she wanted to return to Sderot, a stony-faced Maria merely shook her head no.
Her aunt, Luda Amzeev, a sister of Yossi and Maria's mother, Rima, translated Maria's body language into words, saying, "No, she doesn't want to return to Sderot."
The family is not yet talking about what they will do when the boy is released.
Doctors said Monday they managed to save Haimov's arm, but that he would suffer a serious disability in his hand and would have to undergo several more operations.
Haimov had many visitors Tuesday, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri and MK Amnon Cohen (Shas).
"I heard the Color Red [Qassam alert], I tried to hide and I didn't make it," Haimov told Cohen as two visiting children stood on the other side of his hospital bed.
Rima and Luda have been living in Sderot since they came to Israel with the rest of their family 17 years ago from Uzbekistan.
"It's been seven straight years that we haven't had quiet lives," said Amzeev, 26, in the hospital corridors. "We ran away from one war there, where people were being killed in the streets, to another war here."