‘Close your eyes, all of your neighbors are dead’: Surviving the Israeli strike on Haret Hreik

Two surviving neighbors exchanged “hamdellah al-salemeh” (“Thank God, we are alive”) after the Israeli strike that targeted their building in Haret Hreik, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on Tuesday night. The strike killed Fouad Shukur, a senior Hezbollah official.

At the entrance of the small grocery store located at the corner of the alley leading to the damaged building, Rim* had just retrieved a few belongings from the apartment where she has lived for the past eight years.

“I live on the right side of the building, which is why I was spared,” she said. “I screamed from the window so they would know I was still alive.”

Two children killed in Israeli strike: ‘They were found embracing under the rubble’

Two children killed in Israeli strike: ‘They were found embracing under the rubble’

It took an hour and a half for her to be rescued. At each floor they descended, the rescuer warned her of the danger: A wall could collapse on them.

But Rim did not falter and remained “strong.” It was on the fourth floor that she “collapsed,” she recounted.

“Close your eyes, all your neighbors are dead,” the rescuer told her.

On that floor, moments before the strike, three families had gathered to celebrate a relative’s high school graduation. The children had rushed upstairs to join their cousin.

“It’s as if the strike was waiting for us,” said Amal, a relative who was still at the entrance of the building at the time, and whose 13-year-old daughter is in the hospital in “serious condition.”

It was there that Amira, six, and Hassan, 10, still arm in arm, were killed.

“Amira was her daddy’s darling. She and her brother were inseparable. Hassan always took care of her,” said their maternal aunt, Zainab Sultani.

The day after the strike, the families were scattered across hospitals in the capital and its southern suburbs.

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‘My two children are in a fridge’

The sobs of a woman echoed through the stairwell of Geitaoui Hospital. Another woman, also in tears, held her back.

Mariam Sultani came to visit her 12-year-old son, lying in a hospital bed, still under observation. The young man had been severely burned with burns covering over 30 to 35 percent of his body, with wounds, including on his skull.

“Every time he wakes up, he asks about his brother and sister,” a nurse said. He still doesn’t know that his younger brother and sister have been killed.

The burns center at Geitaoui Hospital, Beirut, July 31, 2024. (Credit: Matthieu Karam)

“My two children are in a fridge… I haven’t told him yet,” the mother said, sobbing.

Still in shock, she struggled to speak but tried to recount what had happened. “They were found entwined,” she said, before having to leave the hospital. She had to rush to Bahman Hospital in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where her husband had been admitted.

Later in the day, at 3 p.m., she would bury her two children.

At Bahman Hospital, the press was already present but barred from entering. After a few minutes, a survivor with facial injuries, emerged from the building.

“I can’t talk. I must see my father, who is also hospitalized,” the young man said. Later, after finding him near the site of the strike to retrieve some belongings, he revealed that he was the cousin of the two children who were killed.

‘This is what Israel is capable of … killing children to assassinate one person’

In Ghobeiry, relatives and residents gathered to offer their condolences. Under the “Rawdet al-Haoura Zeinab '' tent, the portrait of the two children was placed at the center.

Hezbollah’s al-Mahdi scouts assembled, awaiting the funerals. Hassan’s soccer team held up a large portrait of him.

“He was creative and obedient, had been playing soccer for two years, and had a bright future,” said his coach, Hassan Jabber. “I can’t say anything more. He was chosen by God as a martyr, and he is worthy of it.”

The two children will receive the same “honors” as the “martyrs,” according to one of the organizers of the procession. Only the mother of the deceased children, Mariam Sultani, was present. The father and the eldest brother were still in the hospital.

During the funeral procession, Sultani spoke to L’Orient-Le Jour’s reporter and recounted that she was at the entrance of the building while her three children were already upstairs when the strike occurred. For hours, she did not know the fate of her two youngest children.

“It took an enormous amount of time to pull them out from under the rubble,” said Sultani’s sister, Zaynab, who came to support her sister from Sour. “We waited three, four hours for their deaths to be confirmed.”

“Amira was my flower; she was so sweet. It took a long time to get her out. They had to remove a piece of steel,” Sultani said. “My children have done nothing wrong.”

“But this is what Israel is capable of: Sacrificing an entire city, killing children to assassinate one person,” she added. “Nothing will make us change our path [that of the Resistance]. I know that the heart of Sayyed [Hassan Nasrallah] burns for my children, and I tell him: No matter the sacrifices, you represent our pride, our dignity.”

A few moments later, the coffins of the two children arrived at the condolence site before being taken to the Rawdet al-Haoura Zaynab cemetery. At around 4 p.m., the funeral procession began. The coffins were carried, Hezbollah flags were raised, and women threw rice. Others were in tears. The crowd chanted, “Labbayka Hussein,” (We heed your call, Hussein, the Prophet’s grandson who was killed), and “Death to America and Israel.”

A weeping woman at the funeral of her two children, Hassan and his sister Amira, on July 31, 2024 in the southern suburbs of Beirut. (Credit: Matthieu Karam)

At the cemetery, under the devastated gaze of their mother, the two children were buried. Women sat near the tombstone, reciting the Quran for those who died as “martyrs on the path to Jerusalem.”

*The name has been changed.

This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour and translated by Sahar Ghoussoub.