Eight-year-old Osher Tuito regained consciousness Thursday and is now breathing on his own after days of surgery by doctors desperately trying to save his right leg.
Surgeons were forced to amputate his left leg below the knee on Sunday, after a Kassam rocket attack on Sderot the night before seriously wounded both the young boy and his 19-year-old brother Rami. Rami also spent days on the operating table.
Osher, whose name in Hebrew means "happiness," had been kept in a medically-induced coma and on a respirator in order to allow his body to heal from the multiple traumas and surgeries following the blast.
Osher and Rami’s mother and 15-year-old brother were also briefly hospitalized following the Kassam attack. Thirteen other residents were treated for severe emotional shock.
Ten Kassams on Thursday
The Kassam attacks fired by Gaza terrorists have continued unabated since that debilitating attack. On Thursday alone, 10 rockets had been launched at the western Negev by evening, and four mortar shells that were fired at Israel landed in PA-controlled Gaza.
Two of Thursday's missiles exploded in open areas near Sapir College, in the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council, just outside Sderot. Other landed in fields. No injuries or damage were reported in Thursday’s attacks.
On Wednesday, a rocket scored a direct hit on the empty apartment of a young yeshiva couple in Sderot. This was just one of several attacks that day on southern Israel. Several people were treated for shock, and the apartment sustained heavy damage. A Kassam rocket was also fired Wednesday by Gaza terrorists at the coastal city of Ashkelon. The missile landed just south of the city; no injuries or damage were reported.
Late Wednesday night, two more rockets were launched from northern Gaza. Both exploded in open areas, no one was injured, and there was no damage.