Palestinian boy loses his left eye to Israeli rubber bullet

Eight year old Malik Issa, who was shot in the face by an Israeli police officer on 15 February, has lost his left eye.

Malik was shot in the eye by a rubber-coated metal bullet while on his way home from school in Wadi Al-Joz neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, along with his three sisters. He went into the grocery store to buy sweets while the occupation forces were deployed in the town to arrest a young man in the place. As he exited the store he was immediately hit.

After a medical trip that included four surgeries, the last of which was the removal of his left eye. Malik’s father, Wael Issa says one of the surgeries lasted for hours during which the medical staff tried to control the bleeding and repair the lacerations that occurred in the area of the forehead.

His father told Safa News Agency that after he was transferred to hospital, the doctors realised that he was suffering from bleeding in the brain, sustained fractures to his skull, and extensive damage to his left eye.

Despite doctors’ attempt to save his eye, they could not and had to operate on it in order to stop it affecting his right eye, he explained.

PNN