On Monday night, when the air strike hit, 74-year-old Fouad Hassan was sitting on his balcony in the Jnah neighborhood of south Beirut, reading his phone.
The Israeli army did not issue an evacuation order before the rocket hit the home of his children and grandchildren nearby.
“I fainted when the bombing happened,” Fouad recalls. “I had to get oxygen because of the smoke from the strike. When I recovered, I saw the devastation that had taken over the entire neighborhood.”
Now, where several residential buildings once stood, there is a heap of twisted steel and debris. In the buildings that remain, belongings of people can be seen through holes blasted in the walls.
A digger and around 40 local men are painstakingly excavating the area, searching for bodies under the rubble.
“Look at the destruction – an entire neighborhood wiped out, with people here losing their lives,” Fouad gestures towards the bomb site. “My granddaughter lost her life here, and my grandson is still in a coma. They were both 23 years old.”
Fouad is a well-known personality in the area. An actor and comedian known by his stage name Zaghloul, he has appeared on Lebanese television. Locals come up to shake Fouad’s hand and offer their condolences as we walk around the bomb site.
Pulling out his phone from his pocket, Fouad shows us a picture of his granddaughter, Alaa. In the photo, she looks confident, posing for the camera in a smart gold dress.
“She was happily engaged, looking forward to her wedding in three months,” Fouad shares. “She applied to be Miss Lebanon and was tragically killed. Why? Why does the world allow this?”
Since Israel intensified its air strikes against Hezbollah in September, rockets have struck various parts of the country. Israeli leaders view this military campaign as successful, claiming the lives of senior Hezbollah members.
However, the campaign has also resulted in the deaths of many innocent people, with reports of entire families perishing in strikes across Lebanon.
According to government figures, over 1,900 Lebanese individuals have died since the escalation of air strikes by Israel. The statistics do not distinguish between Hezbollah combatants and civilians.
Despite not issuing evacuation orders prior to the Monday night attack, the Israeli army later stated that they were targeting a “Hezbollah terrorist target,” without further clarification.
Initial reports from the scene suggested that the compound of the Rafik Hariri hospital, the largest public hospital in the capital, had been hit, a claim denied by the Israeli army.
While the hospital suffered superficial damage, a nearby impoverished neighborhood bore the brunt of the attack.
Fouad’s son, Ahmed, joins us, showing a picture of his injured son in the hospital, his face covered in bandages and blood.
“My house is gone, along with everything else. We have nowhere to go, no clothes. This is a massacre. We have no affiliation here, no Hezbollah, nothing,” Ahmed expresses.
It remains unclear why the Israeli army chooses to evacuate some areas before missile strikes and not others. However, when Israel strikes without warning in densely populated regions, the human toll can be indiscriminate and severe.
Fouad reminisces about playing with the neighborhood children who lost their lives in the attack.
“Every time I visited, they would call out, ‘Grandpa, Grandpa! What did you bring us?’ I would give them candy, chips, and popcorn. Their loss fills me with sorrow; they all perished. Their mother is still trapped under the rubble with one of her children.”
As we prepare to leave, a solemn silence envelops the gathering as we witness a stretcher carrying a covered body being taken away by the digger.
We are informed that a mother was found beside a child.