‘Destroyed my whole life’: Lebanese families wiped out in Israeli attacks
Hussein Saleh describes an Israeli air attack in Tyre that killed his family, including his wife and his only child. Tyre, Lebanon – Hussein Saleh’s
Hussein Saleh describes an Israeli air attack in Tyre that killed his family, including his wife and his only child. Tyre, Lebanon – Hussein Saleh’s story is heard again and again in southern Lebanon. In March, he lost his family in an Israeli air strike. Hussein stands at the site of the attack in Tyre’s al-Thakana neighbourhood, where his home once stood. He pointed to the spot he was sitting in with his family before he went to buy groceries on March 6, only to find nothing left when he returned. “I wasn’t far away when I heard the explosions,” Hussein says, with tears in his eyes. “I rushed back … there was smoke everywhere, but I couldn’t find anyone. I couldn’t find my daughter … I was screaming out for my wife, my father-in-law, his wife.” He later describes finding the severed head of five-year-old Sara, his only child. Nine people were in the house at the time of the attack – three of them were children, and his wife was pregnant. “There wasn’t one body that was intact,” Hussein says, as he explains that it took three days to collect all the body parts. “What was their crime?” Hussein asks. “I want to know. Why did the Israeli enemy have to kill them? What did they do to deserve this?
They destroyed my whole life.” Investigate as war crimes The strike that killed Hussein’s family was one of three Israeli attacks investigated by Amnesty International, which cumulatively killed 24 civilians between March 6 and March 13. The dead included 12 children ranging in ages from five to 16, as well as six women. “Amnesty International came to the conclusion that these three attacks should be investigated as war crimes because the Israeli military failed to take all the necessary precautions to protect civilians and failed to distinguish between military targets and civilian objects,” says Sahar Mandour, a Lebanon researcher for Amnesty International. “There was no apparent target, and there was no specific warning or an effective warning.” The strikes took place in al-Thakana in Tyre, Arki village in Sidon district, and al-Rahbat neighbourhood in Nabatieh district. Amnesty International says it didn’t find evidence of any military objectives at the time of the attacks. “Within the space of just a week – the Israeli military obliterated entire families, including a dozen children, in Lebanon, demonstrating a callous disregard for civilian lives. How many more families will have to pull the body parts of their children from the rubble before this devastating cycle of war crimes ends?” Kristine Beckerle, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in its report.
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