Lebanese soccer player Celine Haidar has woken up from a nearly two-month coma after the 19-year-old suffered a serious head injury during an Israeli airstrike on Beirut.
On November 16, Haidar was fleeing her home in Al-Chiyyah in the southern suburbs of Beirut following an evacuation order from Israel. She was hit on the right side of her head, leaving her in a critical condition.
Speaking to him at the end of December, his father Haidar Abbas said: “Celine was starting her life, building step by step with football. This injury stopped her journey.”
Earlier this week, Haidar woke up from the coma. According to the family, she can recognize them and shake hands. She was also able to write the names of her nurses.
Haidar still cannot speak easily and has limited mobility and still uses a ventilator. Further medical evaluations are needed to determine if she will make a full recovery.
Before the injury, Haidar established herself as one of Lebanon's most exciting football talents. She was part of the Lebanon under-19 women's team that won the 2022 West Asia Cup and captained the Beirut Football Academy (BFA) senior women's team, leading BFA to a historic league title in the 2023-24 season. She was called up four times by the Lebanese senior national team.
Hezbollah is a pro-Iranian Shiite party with a powerful militia based along Israel's northern border in Lebanon. They began attacking Israel in solidarity with their friend Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in Gaza that led the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah in September, and the violence is estimated to have killed nearly 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced more than a million others.
This article first appeared in The Athletics.
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