Tuesday was another particularly bloody day in southern Lebanon: Three Syrian children were killed in an Israeli strike targeting agricultural land in the town of Uum al-Tout, near the border village of Boustan (Sour), while they were playing near the targeted area.

According to a statement released by the municipality of Boustan, Mohammad Jarkas, Jean Jarkas and Khalil Khalil were aged 7, 10 and 12 respectively. "Like every day since the start of the war, my children spent their day playing in a playground, while I worked in a field," Shahine Jarkas, the father of two of the victims, told AFP.

A 55-year-old farmer from Afrin, who works on a watermelon farm, fled the war in the predominantly Kurdish region of northwestern Syria with his family to Lebanon. “I was working when I heard the sound of the missile. When I was told that the target location was close to the playground, I ran to the scene and saw my children covered in blood,” he added, blaming the “Israeli government.”

According to local sources quoted by L'Orient-Le Jour's correspondent, the bodies were taken to Jabal Amel Hospital, near the city of Sour. Placed on stretchers and wrapped in blankets, they were received by their relatives alongside the family of the owner of the field where the grieving parents work, among the other inhabitants of Umm al-Tout.

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"We had refused to leave since the beginning of the war," said Mohamed Khalil, a 58-year-old refugee and father of the deceased Khalil. "We were displaced from Syria to protect our children from the war ... but in the end, we killed them." UNICEF responded to the tragedy on the social network X, calling it a "horrible murder." For its part, the Israeli army claims that its air force had targeted "a Hezbollah terrorist cell" in the Yarin region, near Umm al-Tout.

On Wednesday, in a speech during the Ashura commemorations, Hezbollah party Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah threatened Israel with targeting "new cities" on its territory if it "continues to kill civilians" in Lebanon.

Nine Syrian nationals killed

The deaths of these three children bring to nine the number of Syrian nationals killed in Lebanon, not counting the wounded, since the start of the clashes between Hezbollah and the Israeli army on October 8, the day after the outbreak of the Gaza war. Nor is this the first time that Syrian children have paid with their lives for these daily battles: on May 17, in Najjariyeh, in the Zahrani region (Saida), two brothers aged 10 and 13 succumbed to their injuries while they were near a hangar described as a Hezbollah "weapons depot" by the Israeli army.

A few hours before the tragedy in Umm al-Tout, which occurred shortly before 6 p.m. on Tuesday, two other Syrians, Abdelmoutaleb Nanis and Hamza Chaaban, were also killed by an Israeli drone strike while they were riding a moped near Arnoun (Nabatieh). Two weeks earlier, two Syrian workers, employed in wheat fields also located near Boustan, were hit by an Israeli raid that cost the life of another Lebanese civilian, Mohieddine Abou Dellé.

By L'Orient-Le Jour's count, the war has so far claimed 500 lives in Lebanon, including 83 civilians. 

This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.