Céline Haidar was on her way to realizing her dream of representing Lebanon on the national team when she was injured in an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut. Today, the 19-year-old footballer is still in intensive care, in a coma. When Israeli bombings increased in intensity on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, a few weeks ago, the young woman's family took refuge in Baakline, a picturesque town nestled in the mountains.
“But Céline was forced to go to Beirut for her studies and training“, his father, Abbas Haidar, told AFP from Saint-George hospital in the Lebanese capital. “When there were calls to evacuate and bombings, she would leave the house, then return in the evening to sleep.“, he adds.
On Saturday, the day of the accident, he called her to warn her of a new call to evacuate from the Israeli army, which usually precedes strikes, and she left the house. “Then my wife called me to tell me that Céline was in the hospital“, he blurted out. She was seriously injured by an impact to the head during a strike on her neighborhood of Chiyah. That day, the Israeli army had relentlessly shelled the southern suburbs, from morning in the evening, targeting at least 10 sites, notably in Chiyah.
“Cerebral hemorrhage”
The young woman was set to captain her BFA women's first division team, Beirut Football Academy, which won the championship last season. She was to join the national team for its next competitions, including a meeting with Iran canceled in October because of the war. She had already won the West Asian Women's Football Cup in 2022 with the national under-18 team.
On social networks, a video moved Internet users. We see the young woman on the ground, her face bleeding, while a young man kneeling next to her screams in pain. “The strike was close (…), she was hit in the head“, his mother Sanaa Chahrour told AFP: “My daughter has a brain hemorrhage and a cracked skull.“
She recounts how her daughter asked her on Saturday to prepare a dish she liked. “An hour later her friend calls me to tell me she was injured“, she adds, sobbing. “My daughter is a hero“, she assures: “She'll get up and play again“. “She dreamed of playing abroad, she said she wanted to be like Ronaldo and Messi (…)“, the mother continues. “They killed his dream (…). Now everyone is talking about her because she is injured, in a war with which she has nothing to do“, she adds.
“Fighter on the field”
“The doctors are monitoring her very closely.“, his father confided to AFP from the hospital: “But the damage is very significant, we hope that it will gradually disappear“. “We pay the price for something that is not our fault“, he regrets, crying. At the end of September, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign and a ground offensive in Lebanon against pro-Iranian Hezbollah.
Since the start in October 2023 of cross-border exchanges of fire in southern Lebanon on the border with Israel, more than 3,540 people have been killed, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the vast majority since the escalation in September. And among the victims, many athletes were killed, according to the media. The Lebanese Football Federation suspended its matches, with the exception of a single match.
The head of the BFA team, Ziad Saadé, explains to AFP that the player is in an artificial coma: “Everyone must pray for her, that she comes back among us“. “On the pitch, she's a fighter. The link between defense and attack“, explains his coach, Samer Barbari, who came to the hospital with his players to support Céline Haidar. “She is an exceptional girl and an excellent player“, adds Samer Barbari.
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