BEIRUT — Curled up on his father’s knees, clinging to his chest, Hussein Mikdad cried with all his heart. The 4-year-old kicked his doctor with his intact foot and pushed him away with the arm that wasn’t in a cast.

“Make him leave me alone!” he cried. His father reassured him and pulled him closer, his eyes filling with tears of sorrow – and gratitude that his son was healing.

Hussein and his father, Hassan, were the only survivors of their family when an Israeli strike last month destroyed their home in Beirut, killing 18 people – including Hussein’s mother, two sisters and brother.

Doctors at the American University of Beirut Medical Center repaired Hussein’s fractured thigh and torn tendons in his arm. Hussein should be able to walk again in two months, although he limps persistently, they say.

The prognosis for Hussein’s invisible wounds is much more difficult. He is back in diapers and has started wetting the bed. He barely speaks. He didn’t ask about his mother and siblings, his father said.

The Israeli military said the Oct. 21 strike hit a Hezbollah target, without elaborating.

Children have often been the victims as Israel has intensified its bombing in Lebanon since late September. More than 100 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the past six weeks, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Among the 14,000 injured by Israeli fire last year, about 10% were children.

Israel has pledged to cripple Hezbollah to stop the Lebanese militant group’s firing on northern Israel, which began just after Hamas launched its attack on October 7. the war in Gaza. He claims that Hezbollah hides its fighters and infrastructure in residential areas.

More and more, strikes are hitting homes and killing families.

“This leaves us with a generation of physically damaged, psychologically and emotionally damaged children,” said Ghassan Abu Sittah, a renowned British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who also treats Hussein.

Lebanon Geitaoui Hospital in Beirut has almost tripled the capacity of its burn center – already one of the largest in Lebanon – since September to accommodate war wounded, said its medical director Naji Abirached.

About a fifth of newly admitted patients are children.

Ivana Skakye turned 2 last week in one of the burn center’s intensive care units. The little girl remains wrapped in gauze around her head, arms and lower body – six weeks after an Israeli strike left her with third-degree burns over 40% of her body.

Fatima Zayoun, his mother, was in the kitchen when the September 23 strike hit outside their house in a southern village. The house was damaged and a fire broke out.

Zayoun rushed to catch her two daughters who were playing on the terrace. They were covered in black ash, she said.

Ivana was unrecognizable, her hair was burnt. “I said to myself, ‘That’s not her,’” Zayoun said.

Ivana’s 7-year-old sister Rahaf had burns on her face and hands and recovered more quickly. Ivana could be released from the hospital in a few days, said her doctor, Ziad Sleiman. But the family has no home to return to, and Zayoun fears Ivana will become infected in the overcrowded shelters for displaced people.

Zayoun was 17 the last time Israel and Hezbollah were at war, in 2006. Displaced at the time with her family, she said she almost enjoyed the experience, leaving their village in a truck, mingling meet new people and learn new things. They returned home after the war.

“But this war is hard. They hit everywhere,” she said. “What do they want from us? Do they want to harm our children? We are not what they are looking for.

Abu Sittah, the surgeon, said that for children, an attack on their home can have lasting effects.

They “lose for the first time that sense of security – that their parents are keeping them safe, that their home is invincible,” he said.

Parents in IDP shelters report increased anxiety, hostility and aggression in their children, said Maria Elizabeth Haddad, a psychosocial worker. Children respond and ignore the rules. Some become sticky. Others develop speech impediments. She cited one who showed the first signs of psychosis.

On a recent morning, children were playing in a school-turned-shelter north of Beirut, where nearly 3,000 people displaced from the south live.

The children – aged 6 to 12 and from different villages – split into two teams, competing to grab a handkerchief. As they played, a little girl clung to a visiting AP reporter, holding his hand. Finally deciding that she could trust him, she whispered a secret in his ear: “I’m from Lebanon.” Don’t tell anyone.

The game collapsed when two girls got into a fist fight. The pushing and shoving was followed by tears and tantrums.

Anxiety symptoms will persist as they grow older – a need for greater stability, attachment difficulties – said Haddad, head of psychosocial support programs in the Beirut region for International Medical Corps, based in the United States.

“It’s a generational trauma. We have already experienced it with our parents,” she said. “This will not be easy to overcome.”

The night the strike broke out, Hassan Mikdad was out for coffee. He saw his building collapse.

His friend, Hussein Hammoudeh, rushed to help with the search. In the darkness, Hammoudeh spotted a few fingers in the rubble. He thought they were separated – until the boy screamed. It was Hussein.

When he dug it up, Hussein had a metal bar embedded in his shoulder and glass stuck in his leg. Hammoudeh held the child’s nearly severed wrist in place.

Hussein’s two sisters, Céline, 10, and Cila, 14, were pulled from the rubble the next day. His mother, Mona, was found embracing her 6-year-old son Ali.

Hassan Mikdad lost almost all traces of his 16 years of family life: his family, his store, his motorcycles and his car, all destroyed.

Only Hussein remains. They must start from scratch together, he said. At the hospital, he buys the boy a new toy every day.

“What I’m experiencing seems to be a big lie. … The mind cannot understand,” he said. “I thank God for the blessing that is Hussein.”