At least 19 people, including six women and five children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, a local official said.
Suad Hammoud told the BBC that the dead included former headmaster Ahmed Ezzedine and three generations of his family, who all lived in a three-storey building in the village of Teffahta.
The Imam of this village, Sheikh Abdo Abo Rayya, was killed while walking near the village during the strike, along with passers-by, he added.
The Israeli military has yet to comment on the incident, but has repeatedly said it is taking steps to minimize casualties.
It has carried out thousands of airstrikes across Lebanon in the past four weeks, targeting what it said were Hezbollah operatives, infrastructure and weapons.
Ms Hammoud said Wednesday’s strike in Teffahta took place after the funeral of Ahmed Ezzedine’s cousin and brother-in-law, Khodr, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the neighboring village of Marwanieh on Monday.
But he said the report by the National News Agency (NNA) that the strike was intended to wake up the mourners to express their condolences is wrong.
“There were only residents of this house. They came back after the funeral. There was no stranger there,” he said.
“People know that the circumstances do not allow them to offer condolences in person, so there are no more vigils in the village.”
Also inside the house with Mr. Ezzedine were his wife, sister, daughters, daughter-in-law, sons-in-law and grandchildren, he said.
Mr Ezzedine lived on the ground floor, while his children and their families lived on the upper floors. But it is believed that everyone was on the ground floor when the house was hit.
A video posted on social media appeared soon after a great smoke rising from the hill in Teffahta where the house was.
On Wednesday morning, Lebanese TV broadcast a video of piles of rubble and twisted metal that once made up the upper floors.
The Ministry of Health in Lebanon has not reported how many people died in the strike. But Ms. Hammoud and Teffahta’s public Facebook account put the death toll at 19.
The Facebook account named the five children as Mohammed Yassin, Ahmed and Malak Ezzedine, and Sara and Mohammed Kinyar, and the six women as Zaineb, Malak, Hadiya, Fadiya and Fatima Ezzedine and Zaina Taleb. .
Sheikh Abo Rayya was walking near the house during the strike, according to Ms. Hammoud.
“The houses in the area are not isolated, they are very close together,” he said, adding that two other men identified on Facebook as Rabih Younes and Hussein Saleh may also have been killed by passers-by. with an explosion.
A relative of Sheikh Abo Rayya told the BBC that the strike happened at around 17:10 local time, about 15 minutes after the funeral.
They insist that Sheikh is not the target, saying that the house was “destroyed”.
“Sheikh Abdo was just passing by the house. He was not in the house. He was on his way to the mosque with his friend. They were going to pray,” they said.
“Imam was coming down the mountain and the pressure wave blew him away. He did not die immediately. He was injured and died at the hospital five hours later.”
Last week, the UN human rights office received reports that 12 women and two children among them 23 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a four-story building in the city of Aitou in northern Lebanon..
It called for an investigation into the attack, expressing concern in relation to international humanitarian law, including the principles of discrimination and equality.
The Israeli military said it had “struck a target belonging to the terrorist organization Hezbollah”.
Israel has launched an air and ground offensive against Hezbollah after a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the Gaza war, saying it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of Israeli border residents displaced by rocket attacks.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of the Palestinians on October 8, 2023, the day after Israel launched a deadly attack on its ally Hamas.
More than 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 1,900 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities say 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the Golan Heights.
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