Sidon, Lebanon (AFP) Rescuers did not expect to find two-year-old Ali Khalifeh alive after an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed his entire family and left him trapped under rubble for 14 hours.

Amputated, bandaged and on a ventilator in a hospital bed that was far too big for him, “Ali is the only survivor of his family,” said Hussein Khalifeh, his father’s uncle.

The toddler’s parents, sister and two grandparents died in the September 29 strike, days after Israel stepped up its attacks against Hezbollah militants.

The strike at Sarafand, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of the coastal city of Sidon, flattened an apartment complex and killed 15 people, many of them relatives, according to residents.

“Rescuers have almost given up hope of finding anyone alive under the rubble,” Khalifeh, 45, told AFP from the Sidon hospital where his two-year-old relative was being treated.

But then “Ali appeared among the debris in the bulldozer’s shovel after we all thought he was dead,” he said.

“He emerged from the rubble, barely breathing, after 14 hours.”

Israel has been at war with Hezbollah since late September, when it expanded its war focus from fighting Hamas militants in Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon.

An ever-escalating Israeli air campaign, following nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border firing, has killed more than 2,600 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to Health Ministry figures.

– “Psychological Scars” –

Signs of violence were evident even at the hospital in Sidon, where Ali was rushed following the Sarafand strike.

The child, in a medically induced coma after doctors amputated his right hand, has since been transferred to a medical facility in the capital Beirut, where he is to undergo pre-prosthetic surgery.

“Ali was sleeping on the couch at home when the strike hit. He is still sleeping today… they were waiting for him to finish his operations before waking him up,” said relative Hussein Khalifeh.

Other family members were struggling to survive after the Sarafand strike.

One of Khalifeh’s granddaughters, Zainab, 32, was trapped under the rubble for two hours before being rescued and transferred to the nearest hospital, the man said.

There she was later informed that her parents, husband and three children, aged three to seven, had been killed.

The strike left her with one badly injured eye.

Zainab said she “did not hear the sounds of the rockets raining down on her family’s house,” according to Khalifeh.

“She only saw darkness and heard deafening screams,” he said.

Ali Alaa El-Din, a doctor treating her, said that “the psychological scars that Zainab suffered are far greater than her physical injury.”

He also attended to Zainab’s sister Fatima, 30, who was injured in the same attack.

Both had injuries “all over their bodies, with leg fractures and lung injuries,” the doctor said.

Medically, he added, “the cases of Zainab and Fatima are not among the most difficult cases we have faced during the war, but they are the worst from a psychological and human perspective.”