Despite international calls for a temporary ceasefire, Israeli warplanes continued to pound Lebanon on Thursday, with an entire family among the victims.
Before the wedding of Lebanese engineer Maya Gharib, which was planned for next month, excited relatives were arranging to collect her wedding dress.
But on Monday, 23-year-old Gharib, her two sisters and parents were killed in an Israeli attack on their home on the outskirts of the southern city of Tyre, said Gharib’s brother Reda, the only surviving family member.
Israel claims Monday’s attacks targeted Hezbollah weapons. Lebanon’s health ministry said the attacks killed more than 550 people, including at least 50 children and 98 women, in the deadliest day for Lebanon since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
A screenshot shared with Reuters shows a message a relative sent to a wedding dress shop after the death of the Gharib family: “The bride has become a martyr”:
“They were just sitting at home, and then the house was targeted,” Reda Gharib, who moved to Senegal last year for work, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The family was buried in a hasty funeral the next day, with few in attendance due to the threat of an attack. Reda could not come because most flights were canceled amid Israeli attacks and Hezbollah rocket fire.
His father was a retired veteran of the Lebanese army, an inter-sectarian force funded by the US and other countries that is widely seen as a source of unity in Lebanon. His sisters were in their twenties.
“We are a patriotic family with no party affiliation, and of course we support anyone who resists aggression,” said Reda Gharib, noting that no one in the family was a member of Hezbollah. But now, after losing his family, he wants Hezbollah to continue fighting Israel “until victory” and not accept any negotiations.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, a day after the militant Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel, declaring a “front of support” for the Palestinians.
Clashes escalated sharply last week, with thousands injured and hundreds killed in Lebanon, as Israel conducts an air campaign that has hit most parts of the country.
Since Monday, when Israeli strikes began the chaos, there have been reports of families with many members killed.
In the southern town of Hanouiyeh, an Israeli attack killed eight members of a family and a Gambian domestic worker, relatives said.
Mohammad Saksouk, whose brother Hassan was among those killed, told Reuters the attack hit a building next to the family’s home, which collapsed on top of theirs.
He said his family had no ties to Hezbollah and criticized Israel for “indiscriminate” attacks, while also questioning why Lebanon was drawn into a battle Hezbollah claims is in support of the Palestinians.
“We are homeless now. We live on the streets,” he said by phone from a temporary shelter. “We lived completely normal lives before. Who will return our homes?”.
The victims included Hasan Saksouk, his grown children Mohammad and Mona, Mohammad’s wife Fatima and their nine-month-old daughter Rima, as well as Mona’s three children, all under the age of nine.
Anna, a Gambian worker in her early thirties, also died.
In the coastal town of Saksakieh, 11 civilians were killed on Monday, including six women and two children, according to Mayor Ali Abbas, who said houses were directly hit.
“These are civilian houses, they have nothing to do with military installations,” Abbas told Reuters.
