Almost entire Lebanese family killed in Israeli attack
Schools and universities were closed in Nabatieh after the attack. (file)
Nabatih:
Hussein Barjawi had invited his daughter, her husband and their two young sons to dinner in southern Lebanon, but an Israeli strike nearly wiped them all out, an official said Thursday.
A Hezbollah commander and two fighters from the powerful Lebanese movement were killed in an Israeli strike targeting a building in the southern city of Nabatiyah on Wednesday, a security source said, adding that seven civilians from the same family were also killed.
Lebanon’s official national news agency reported that Hussein Barjawi, his daughters Amani and Zainab, his sister Fatima, and Zainab’s son Mahmoud Amer were killed in the attack, while a young boy, Hussein Amer, was pulled alive from the debris.
A security source later told AFP that Barjawi’s wife and niece were also killed.
It was the highest civilian death toll in a single attack on Lebanon since cross-border hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group began in October.
Amin Shomar, a local official in south Lebanon, said Ali Amer, his wife and their two sons, aged three and four, “were invited to his father-in-law’s house in Nabatiyeh for dinner”.
Shomar told AFP that Amer was “badly injured” in the attack and taken to hospital, while his wife and son died and his other son was pulled alive from the debris.
Videos circulating on social media reportedly show the boy in a blue tracksuit being rescued, his face covered in blood, with a mattress next to him amid the debris.
An AFP photographer said the ground and first floors of the three-story residential building were damaged and pieces of furniture were scattered among the debris.
The security source said Hezbollah fighters were on the ground floor, while the family was on the first floor.
Israel’s military confirmed it had killed a Hezbollah commander, his deputy and another fighter in Wednesday’s raid.
A statement said Ali al-Deeb and two fighters were “killed in a precision airstrike carried out by IDF (Israeli) aircraft on a Hezbollah military structure in Nabatiyeh”.
Shocked by sudden violence
Schools, universities and local administrative offices were closed in Nabatieh on Thursday following the attack.
Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group have been exchanging cross-border fire daily since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.
The Lebanese group says it is acting in support of Palestinian ally Hamas through its attacks on Israel.
Fifteen people, including five Hezbollah fighters, were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, and an Israeli soldier was killed in an unprovoked rocket attack from Lebanon.
According to NNA, the dead include a woman from Savneh village, her two-year-old child and her 13-year-old stepchild.
Tarek Marouh, 35, who works at a pharmaceutical company, expressed surprise at the sudden violence in his neighborhood in Nabatiyeh.
Speaking early Thursday before the news that a Hezbollah commander was also in the building, he said he thought the home of a Hezbollah member may have been targeted.
“But then we found out it was Hussein Barjawi’s building. He is a civilian, not affiliated with any political party,” Marooh said.
Speaking on Thursday morning, mechanic Mohammad Badir, 67, whose workshop is nearby, said “civilians were targeted”.
Nabatiyeh was relatively spared from cross-border violence until February 8 when an Israeli drone strike on a car seriously wounded a Hezbollah commander who was killed in Wednesday’s raid.
According to an AFP tally, cross-border hostilities have resulted in the deaths of at least 259 people on the Lebanese side, the majority of whom are Hezbollah fighters but also include 40 civilians.
According to the Israeli military, 10 Israeli soldiers and six civilians have been killed.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)