Shock, grief as Israeli Lebanon strike kills 10 Syrians
- 17 Aug 2024
Sobbing relatives thronged Sheikh Ragheb Hospital on Saturday after an Israeli air strike killed 10 Syrians, including two children, who had escaped war at home only to die in south Lebanon.
The early morning strike hit a building in the Wadi Al Kafur area of Nabatieh, killing the 10 including a mother and her two children, Lebanon's health ministry said.
At the hospital, relatives and friends of the victims expressed shock and anger at their sudden deaths, with women dressed in black weeping and wailing.
"Two of my sister's children were killed, another is in intensive care, and my other nephew is also in intensive care," said Hussein Al Hussein, holding back tears as he listed relatives killed or wounded in the strike.
"They were sleeping, they didn't know anything. They were young labourers, and the Israeli air force targeted them."
The civilian toll from the strike was one of the highest in southern Lebanon since Hizbollah and Israel began exchanging near daily cross-border fire during the Gaza war.
The official Lebanese National News Agency reported that the casualties were Syrian refugees and labourers working at the factory that had been hit.
Omar Al Shahud, who works in the factory, said he was lucky to escape death because he did not live in the targeted annexe.
"Six of my relatives were killed. They had nothing to do with" the war, he said in an angry voice. "They were workers who came here to earn a living."
In red shrouds
In a nearby room, crying relatives mourned a family of four: the factory building's concierge, his wife and two children aged four and one and a half, a family member told AFP. Their bodies were shrouded in red cloth and adorned with flowers.
At the site of Saturday's strike, concrete rubble, metal wreckage and a few items of children's clothing and shoes were all that was left of the building that was targeted.
Standing beside his bombed-out factory, Hussein Tahmaz insisted the facility was "100 per cent civilian." He pointed to the wreckage of a red truck. "Here we used to park and load our goods," Tahmaz said.
The building that was hit was an annexe to a two-storey factory warehouse where the concierge, his small family, and workers lived, mayor Khodr Saad told AFP. "What did these children do to deserve this? They fled their country to escape death, only to find it here," he said.
Agence France-Presse
