2 weeks Ago By Ashleigh McMillan, Rachael Dexter
“How do you fix this? I’ve lost an eye. And I’ll never forget I could have lost my life too.” As she stood bleeding and disorientated in her student accommodation, Australian woman Ranem Abu-Izneid, 20, did not believe she would survive the injury which has robbed her of sight in her right eye.
Ranem Abu Izneid (left) is embraced by her mother, Rana, at Melbourne Airport on Sunday. Credit: Wayne Taylor On Sunday morning, the young woman who had been studying at university in the occupied West Bank arrived home in Melbourne to be greeted by her concerned parents. Abu-Izneid was hit by a ricochet when a friend was allegedly shot at by Israeli forces in their student accommodation near Jerusalem on November 15.
Abu-Izneid suffered serious injuries to her face and chest from metal shrapnel. Ranem Abu-Izneid was in her third year studying dentistry in the West Bank. The young woman and her family are now desperate for an independent investigation into the alleged actions of the Israel Defence Forces soldier who fired the shot.
The Australian citizen, who was born in Jordan and whose family is Palestinian, was in her third year studying dentistry at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis town in the Palestinian territories near Jerusalem, which is in a non-combat zone. Abu-Izneid remembers she was preparing for exams on the day she was injured, and became scared when she heard the sound of bombs outside. Israeli forces began speaking Hebrew over student residence loudspeakers, which she couldn’t understand.
Abu-Izneid said she stood further back in the apartment, and her female flatmate approached the window to see what was happening outside. A soldier allegedly fired a shot at the flatmate. The bullet pierced clean through the window frame of the fourth-floor apartment.
There was a “big bang”, Abu-Izneid said, but at the time she couldn’t process what was happening. While the projectile missed both women, it hit the top corner of the room and exploded close to Abu-Izneid, showering her in shrapnel that embedded in her chest, face and eye. The bullet hole in the window frame of Ranem Abu-Izneid’s student accommodation near Jerusalem.
“I looked at my friend, and she was covered in blood. Later on, I found out it wasn’t her blood, it was actually the blood coming out of my eye. There was blood everywhere, and I didn’t expect to live,” Abu-Izneid said.
“No one should live this fear.” Photos of the bullet and Abu-Izneid’s facial injuries taken shortly after the incident have been seen by this masthead, along with medical reports from hospitals that treated her in Ramallah and Jerusalem. Sitting in the harsh light of Melbourne Airport’s arrivals terminal on Sunday, Abu-Izneid said she was grateful to be home with family, but fears her injuries will prevent her from becoming a dentist.
Her face and chest are marred by wounds, with stitches holding together a larger cut on her chin. A patch covers her ruptured right eye, and pieces of metal remain in the eye socket. She is unable to see out of her right eye and is likely to need further surgery.
Hospital staff were awaiting her arrival after the plane landed. “My dreams have come crashing down in an instant. It’s all over.
I wanted to achieve my dreams of becoming a dentist, but I don’t think that’s possible any more,” Abu-Izneid said. “I don’t even look like me ..
. I just want to be me again.” Mazen Alkhatib, the dean of student affairs at Al-Quds University, said the community was struggling to understand why the alleged shooting happened in what is considered a “safe area”.
Abu-Izneid’s family wants an independent investigation into the incident, and has urged the Australian government to act. “We demand the Australian government formally and transparently investigate this,” her mother, Rana Abu-Izneid, said on Sunday. “We are innocent civilians – she lived in a safe area, we could have never imaged this to be the case.
” Rana, a dentist, sobbed as she embraced her daughter for the first time since she was injured. Ranem clutched red roses, handed to her by one of her family and friends. “For me, she’s still a child.
Just 20 years of age, suffering this ...
Since she was shot to this moment, it’s felt like years,” Rana said. Friends and family members give Abu-Izneid roses after her arrival home. Credit: Wayne Taylor “She has been looking forward to being a dentist since she was 15 years old.
I’m not sure if this incident will maybe stop her, but she’s brave.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had provided consular assistance while the 20-year-old was in Jordan. “Our thoughts are with her and her family as she recovers.
We are limited in what we can say as she has a right to privacy,” a spokesperson said. Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office has been contacted for comment, along with the Israeli embassy in Australia and the Israel Defence Forces. Abu-Izneid’s father, Dr Tareq Abu-Izneid, a medical academic from Monash University, travelled overseas to accompany his daughter home after she entered Jordan via the Allenby border crossing on November 20.
He said his priority was to ensure his daughter gets the best medical care possible in Australia, and has every chance to have her sight restored and return to the field she loves so much. “Until the last day of my life, I will want her to be a dentist. If I have to, I will quit my job, I will go with her, and I want to help her do whatever she wants.
She was so excited about studying,” he said. Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter .
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