Israeli Strike in Lebanon Kills 12 People From a Single Family, Including 6 ChildrenIsrael is once again escalating its bombing of southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire and ongoing U.S.-brokered talks.
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KFAR REMMAN, Lebanon—“They are killing children. That’s what they’re doing,” Baker Malak said, pointing to the tiny coffins being carried through the streets of the town of Kfar Remman in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. He walked alongside hundreds of mourners in a funeral procession to bury 12 members of a single family, half of them children, killed in an Israeli airstrike on their home a day earlier. Nearby, mourners carried the coffin of 18-year-old paramedic Ali Shahrour, killed in a separate strike on the town the same day. The procession wound through streets scarred by months of bombardment as an Israeli drone buzzed incessantly overhead. “When Israel sees that the Lebanese government is doing nothing, they will keep targeting children,” said Malak. Israel bombed the three-story family home of the Farhat family on Monday morning without warning, reducing the entire building to rubble, and killing three men, three women, and six children between the ages of two months and 13 years. Two other children, both eight years old, were severely wounded in the strike.
Malak, 45, a resident of Kfar Remman, was a close friend of two brothers killed in the attack, Hassan and Hussein Farhat. Both their coffins were draped in Hezbollah flags during the funeral. Malak told Drop Site he had seen the two men 10 days before the strike. He said they were preparing their children for school after months of closures due to Israel’s bombardment. In the ruins of the family home, schoolbooks, timetables and notebooks lay scattered among the ruins. The Israeli military claimed without evidence that it struck Hezbollah operatives transporting weapons in the area. Malak told Drop Site the house was a civilian home and contained no weapons. Lebanon’s Health Ministry called it a “grave violation of international law.” During the burial procession, a man’s voice rang out over a loudspeaker: “Stand up and say goodbye to our angels”—referring to the six children among the dead. One of the few survivors, eight-year-old Mustafa Farhat, lost his entire immediate family in the attack—his parents, siblings and grandparents. Badly wounded, he remained at Al-Najda Hospital in Nabatieh.
The deadly attack on the Farhat home came as part of an escalated wave of Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon that killed at least 27 people, and wounded 69 over the previous three days, according to the Health Ministry. The renewed Israeli assault forced some 20,000 people to flee Nabatieh district last week alone, according to the United Nations. The attacks come despite a ceasefire and U.S.-brokered framework agreement signed in Washington by the governments of Israel and Lebanon on June 26. The deal requires the Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm Hezbollah before Israel withdraws from parts of the swathe of Lebanese territory it occupies. Hezbollah has rejected the deal, which has been criticized for extracting few guarantees from Israel and placing nearly all obligations on the Lebanese government. An eighth round of talks between Lebanon and Israel overseen by Washington is expected later this month. The talks have proceeded despite nearly daily attacks by Israel on Lebanon. Between Thursday and Monday, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, recorded no less than 528 projectiles fired by the Israeli military. On Sunday alone, it recorded 62 Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace—among the highest daily totals since June. UNIFIL also detected Israeli airstrikes inside its area of operations and north of the Litani River. And for the first time since June 21, it also detected a Hezbollah projectile on Sunday, with the group beginning to reengage in retaliatory attacks. Asked on Tuesday whether the escalation was being driven by one side, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric pointed to UNIFIL’s observations and said: “Everyone can draw their own conclusions pretty clearly.” Malak said the continuing strikes have only deepened the conviction among many in the south that the framework agreement has failed to protect civilians. “The resistance is the only solution,” he said, referring to Hezbollah. He stressed that people in Nabatieh opposed the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory in a variety of ways: with weapons, words, or by refusing to leave their land. Malak remained in heavily bombarded Kfar Remman throughout the war, distributing aid and food, and helping to bury the dead. “I will never leave my village,” he said. “If I ever have to leave, it will be to the grave.” Since the latest phase of the war began in Lebanon on March 2, nearly 4,400 people have been killed, including more than 250 children, and over 12,400 wounded, according to the Health Ministry. Israel has also targeted health care workers and medical facilities, killing at least 135 emergency workers and attacking 17 hospitals. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike completely destroyed Ghandour Hospital in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, according to the ministry, which condemned the attack as another violation of the special protections afforded to medical facilities. At the funeral in Kfar Remman on Tuesday, Karim Saleh, a 32-year-old paramedic with Al-Rissala Scouts— a Lebanese youth and civil defense organization—stood beside the grave of his friend and colleague, 18-year-old paramedic Ali Shahrour who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in Kfar Remman at 1 a.m. on Monday. Saleh, Shahrour, and two other paramedics, Hadi Farhat and Hassan Hamze, had just finished work at a small restaurant they had recently opened together and Shahrour was driving them all home. Saleh was dropped off first, but shortly after he entered his home, he heard the screech of a missile tearing through the air followed by an explosion. Saleh put on his scouts vest and raced to the scene. Shahrour, Farhat, and Hamze had been struck in the car. People managed to pull out Farhat and Hamze from the burning vehicle just before it exploded. Farhat and Hamze were wounded, but Shahrour was killed. “Every time I close my eyes I see their faces from that moment. That’s why I’m trying to stay awake, so I don’t close my eyes,” Saleh told Drop Site, his yellow emergency worker vest stained with blood and his eyes red from tears and exhaustion.
When Saleh visited Farhat in the intensive care unit in Al-Najda Hospital, Farhat’s first question was “Where is Ali?” He had only just been taken off the breathing tube so that he could speak. Saleh said his friend was in shock, struggling with traumatic memories of the attack. Farhat insisted on attending his friend Shahrour’s funeral Tuesday, but doctors said his condition was too serious to leave the hospital. “I’m not going to wash their blood off this vest,” Saleh said. “It makes me feel like I’ll always have them by my side.” Shahrour’s father, Daniel Sharhour, stood beside him. “They killed him in his own hometown. In his own car. In his own country,” Daniel Sharhour said. As he spoke, his voice grew louder, drawing people around him. “I will never forgive what happened to my son. Revenge is hanging around my neck like a necklace. I will take my revenge. I’m not afraid.”
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