LEBANON (AP) – It was Sunday, family time for most in Lebanon, and Hecham al-Baba was visiting his sister. She insisted he and their older brother stay for lunch, hoping to prolong the warm gathering in stressful times.
The brother declined. Like many in Lebanon, he hadn’t been sleeping because of Israel’s intensifying airstrikes, so he left to take a nap.
The 60-year-old al-Baba, on his annual visit from Germany to see his family in Lebanon, stayed. His sister Donize even convinced him to call an old flame over for coffee. He excitedly stepped into the bathroom to clean up before his visitor arrived.
Within seconds, a huge boom shook the basement apartment. Al-Baba fell to the floor.
Something hit him in the chest, knocking the breath out of him. He pulled himself up and reached for the door, screaming his sister’s name. A second explosion threw him back to the floor. The bathroom ceiling – and the whole building above it – collapsed on his back.
An Israeli air raid hit the six-storey residential building in Ain el Delb, a neighbourhood outside the coastal city of Sidon. The entire building tipped over down a hillside and landed on its face, taking with it 17 apartments full of families and visitors. More than 70 people were killed, and 60 injured.
Israel said the September 29 strike targeted a Hezbollah commander and claimed the building was a headquarters for the group. It could not be independently confirmed whether any of the residents belonged to the group.
In a video that surfaced online mourning one of the people believed to be residing in the building, he appeared in an old photo wearing military fatigues, a sign of affiliation with Hezbollah.
Either way, experts say the strike illustrates Israel’s willingness to murder significant numbers of civilians in pursuit of a single target. That tactic has fueled the high death toll among Palestinians in Gaza in Israel’s year-old campaign against Hamas.
Israel has intensified bombardment of Lebanon since September 23, vowing to cripple Hezbollah. Israel said it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure and said the group places military assets in civilian areas.
Some 2,000 people have been killed, including Hezbollah fighters and commanders – but also hundreds of civilians, often in strikes on homes.
“It seems to be a feature so similar to Gaza in that these are families being killed together in single strikes,” said director of a London-based group monitoring conflicts Airwars Emily Tripp.
In the first week of Israel’s escalation, it hit a home in Tyre province, killing a family of 15, all of them women and children except for a Hezbollah member.
A strike in Byblos killed six family members of a Hezbollah fighter, who had already died in fighting a month before – raising questions about the quality of intelligence used in the strikes. A hit on a shack housing Syrian migrant worker families killed 23.
The strike in Ain el Delb was one of the deadliest of the Israeli campaign. Among those killed were al-Baba’s sister, her husband and two of their children, a daughter in her 20s and a teenage boy.
Al-Baba was trapped for hours, with the rubble pressing him in an agonising, kneeling position, his neck twisted, his face stuck to the bathroom floor, unable to feel his legs. He knew his sister’s family was dead from the constant, unanswered ringing of their phones.
“No one said a word. I didn’t hear a movement,” he said.
‘PEOPLE DON’T KNOW. ISRAEL KNOWS’
The Israeli military said it enacted evacuation procedures before acting on confirmed intelligence in the Ain el Delb strike. Residents who spoke to The Associated Press said they received no warning.
“I wish we had. We would have left,” said Abdul-Hamid Ramadan, who lived on the top floor and whose wife Jinan and daughter Julia were killed.
“I would have lost my home. But not my wife and daughter.”
Israel said it often issues evacuation orders before striking. But in Lebanon, as in Gaza, rights groups say the advance warnings are often inadequate and come in the middle of the night or through social media. – Sarah El Deeb
