JERUSALEM - Actress Mia Farrow headed back to the United States on Sunday haunted by the image of a young girl who spoke in a tiny voice of the destruction of her home and the death of her loved ones in the Gaza war.
"There was fear on her face and she spoke in a tiny voice... of the injustice," the 64-year-old actress said in an interview as she wrapped up a week-long visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories as goodwill ambassador for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF.)
She said she'll never forget the face of the 12-year-old who told her "about about when her house was destroyed, the people who were killed."
Farrow also recounted visiting a Gaza hospital where "doctors had to make the agonising decision to release babies of only one kilo (2.2 pounds) because there weren't enough viable incubators and they can't get spare parts in."
"If there is one overriding impression it is how profoundly leadership has screwed up in this region, in Israel and in the Palestinian territory and at what cost to the most vulnerable, the children, the elderly, the innocent," said Farrow.
Farrow also visited the Israeli city of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of the rockets attacks from Gaza, just a few kilometres (miles) away.
She said she heard of children in Sderot not being able to sleep at night.
"Fear is fear and you don't want children living in fear. But there is a huge difference between Sderot and what happened to the people of Gaza.
"I would say the response was pretty excessive, against all international laws and common decency," said Farrow, who wore a UNICEF T-shirt.
She pointed out that Sderot has bomb shelters and warning sirens, and had far fewer casualties.
In Gaza on the other hand, "the people had nowhere to go. The attacks were by air, by land and by sea. This is unimaginable, you have a population of 1.5 million people in absolute terror," said Farrow.
While the deadly Israeli offensive devastated Gaza, Palestinian resistance fired home-made rockets that did comparatively little damage.
In Sderot, Farrow was shown some of the Palestinian rockets that slammed into the city. "I looked inside the rockets, it was mud, just mud."
Yet, she appealed to Palestinians to stop the attacks on Israel.
"Every rocket that's fired erodes your own standing. Don't do it, you're losing the moral high ground.
"They have been wronged, but that's overlooked because they fired rockets. I don't know if people really understand how relatively insignificant these rockets are, but how immense the publicity they triggered, anti-Palestinian publicity."
Once a fashion model, Farrow has appeared in more than 40 films, including 13 in which she co-starred with Woody Allen, with whom she had a 12-year relationship.
A high-profile advocate for children's rights and the mother of 14 -- 10 of them adopted -- Farrow has visited several conflict zones, including Sudan's Darfur region.
Israel's war on Gaza killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and wounded 5,450 others.
The war also left tens of thousands of houses destroyed, while their residents remained homeless.
Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas's win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter’ siege had already existed before.
Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”
A group of international lawyers and human rights activists had also accused Israel of committing “genocide” through its crippling blockade of the Strip.
Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.
Fatah has little administrative say in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has no power in Arab east Jerusalem, both of which were illegally occupied by Israel in 1967.
Israel also currently occupies the Lebanese Shabaa Farms and the Syrian Golan Heights.
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