Lebanon's 19-year-old soccer sensation in coma after Israeli strikes

Leading Lebanese soccer player Celine Haidar is in a medically induced coma after she was critically wounded in an Israeli strike near her home in Beirut's southern suburbs, her international championship prospects on hold.

Captain of her club team and already included in the national youth team twice, the 19-year-old refused to allow her training to be interrupted by Israel's bombardment, even as her own family fled to a mountain town east of Beirut.

She convinced her parents to let her return home alone so she could continue training, assuring them she would leave every time the Israeli army issued an evacuation warning for a neighbourhood it was intending to bomb.

But last Saturday, she missed the warning.

She was asleep when the Israeli military spokesman posted an evacuation warning for her neighborhood. Her parents called her and urged her to leave immediately, but time was short.

An Israeli warplane struck as she leapt onto her motorbike. She was hit by shrapnel, which left her with severe brain injuries, including multiple skull fractures and brain bleeding.

The Israeli military was not immediately available to comment on the strike.

She is now in an intensive care unit at Saint George Hospital in Beirut, connected to monitors and a breathing tube, with her head bandaged, according to her coach Samer Barbary.

Her parents, Abbas Haidar and Sanaa Shahrour, stand watch over her, struggling to comprehend the calamity that befell their daughter and praying for a miracle.

"I never thought I would have a daughter like her," her father said, his voice heavy with emotion. "She has dreams and strength. She always told me, 'You'll see what I will accomplish tomorrow.'"

She is among over 15,000 people wounded by Israeli