Lebanese footballer Celine Haidar was on the brink of fulfilling her dream of playing for the national women’s team when disaster struck.
A devastating Israeli airstrike left the 19-year-old in a medically induced coma, just as her career was about to take off.
When full-scale war erupted in September, Haidar’s family was among more than a million people forced to flee south Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds as Israeli bombs pounded the region.
“But Celine had to come back to south Beirut for her studies and training,” her father, Abbas Haidar, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“She would leave the house after evacuation calls were issued or bombing intensified, then she’d come back home at night to sleep,” he said.
Now, she is the latest athlete to become a casualty of Israeli strikes, which already forced the Lebanese Football Association to postpone all domestic football competitions indefinitely.
On Saturday, her father called to warn her of new evacuation orders published by the Israeli military online, and she left the house.
But soon after, “my wife called to tell me Celine was in the hospital,” he said.
She had been seriously wounded in an Israeli strike on her home neighborhood of Shiyah, as the air force pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Cracked skull
Footage of Haidar lying unconscious on the ground, her face covered in blood while a young man beside her cried in pain, took Lebanese social media by storm.
“The strike was close, and she was hit in the head,” her mother, Sanaa Shahrour, told AFP. “My daughter has a brain hemorrhage, her skull is cracked.”
She said her daughter had sent her a message asking her to prepare her favorite dish, but “an hour later, her friend called to say she had been wounded.”
“My daughter is a heroine,” she said, her eyes red with tears. “She’s strong. She will get back up and play again.”
“She dreamt of competing abroad. She said she wanted to be like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi … She wanted to be a star and for everyone to talk about her.”
“Now everyone is talking about her because she was wounded in a war she has nothing to do with,” she said.
“She has beautiful dreams,” she said, but “they killed her dream.”
‘A fighter’ on the pitch
Haidar was a pillar of her club, Beirut Football Academy (BFA), which won the Lebanese Women’s Football League last season without dropping a single point and was set to wear the captain’s armband this season.
The midfielder was also part of the national women’s Under-18 team that won the 2022 West Asian Football Federation championship.
Now, she is in a medically induced coma, team manager Ziad Saade said.
“The doctors are following her very closely,” her father told AFP from Saint George Hospital in Beirut, where his daughter is being treated.
“But her injuries are serious. We hope she will gradually heal,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“We’re paying the price for something that’s not our fault.”
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,544 people have been killed since Israel started its rampage on Lebanon in October last year, with the most deaths recorded since Tel Aviv stepped up its campaign in September.
“On the pitch, she’s a fighter. She was the link between defense and attack,” coach Samer Barbary said as he and his teammates visited her at the hospital.
“She is an exceptional girl and an excellent player.”