Celine Haidar, the Lebanon player struck by shrapnel, wakes from coma

Lebanese footballer Celine Haidar has woken from a coma nearly two months 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 Beirut’s southern suburbs after an evacuation order from Israel. She was struck on the right side of her head, leaving her in critical condition.

Speaking to The Athletic at the end of December, Haidar’s father Abbas said: “Celine was beginning her life, building step by step with football. This injury cut off her journey.”

Earlier this week, Haidar awoke from the coma. According to family, she is able to recognise them and squeeze hands. She was also able to write the names of her nurses.

Haidar still cannot talk easily and mobility is limited and she is still using a ventilator. Further medical assessments are required 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 Lebanon’s Under-19 women’s team who won the 2022 West Asia Cup and captain of the Beirut Football Academy (BFA) senior women’s team, leading BFA to an historic league title in the 2023-24 season. She had been called up four times by the Lebanon senior national team.

Hezbollah is a pro-Iranian Shiite party with a powerful militia based across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon. It began attacking Israel in solidarity with its ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in Gaza that led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah in September, and the violence is estimated to have killed nearly 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced over a million others.