Seven members of the Kojok-Makki family were killed in Kawthariyet al-Sayyad on Monday. Photo montage taken from social media.
First, there’s the cold, stark figure: 569 killed. Never before have so many deaths been recorded since the end of the Lebanese civil war. On that Black Monday, all eyes and microphones were focused on those hastily fleeing the bombardments in the South and the Bekaa, carrying only a few belongings in search of a safe place. The others, however, remained mere numbers that day — disembodied, faceless and unnamed. Like in Gaza. The Israeli army claims to have targeted Hezbollah's infrastructure or hideouts. It also reportedly "warned" civilians of an imminent attack through text messages, urging them to "stay away until further notice from the villages containing buildings where Hezbollah weapons are stored."
During his press conference yesterday, caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad reported 558 deaths, including 50 children and 94 women. That number has since risen to 569 killed on Wednesday.
"The victims of Monday constitute a majority of unarmed civilians who were safe in their homes," he stated in the evening to L'Orient-Le Jour. When asked about the ratio of civilian casualties to combatants, the minister did not respond.
For now, the count does not appear to be final. The lists are unofficial, and very little information is circulating about the identities of the victims. Grieving families refuse to speak out. Local officials release information sparingly, and only a few family photos are circulating on social media.
Maya Zgheib. Photo from her social media.
On Facebook, the news site Bint Jbeil published photos of students and young scouts killed in the bombings, as well as those of 14 residents from the town of Khrayeb, located between Sour and Adloun.
"This is Maya, my student who became a martyr," writes Ibrahim Obeid, a teacher from Tripoli, on Facebook. The young woman graduated in architecture from the Lebanese University, just like Rola Dakdouki, who was killed in the Israeli strike last Friday in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which resulted in at least 50 deaths. The lives of both young women were cut short along with several of their relatives. The town of Bint Jbeil is also mourning the death of a butcher, Hussein al-Saghir, nicknamed al-Zaghloul, who had thought it wise to move about thirty kilometers north to Tayr Filsay to avoid the bombings.
Hussein al-Saghir, killed by an Israeli strike on Monday. Photo from Bint Jbeil's local Facebook page.
Children pay a heavy price
Yasmina Nassar, who was killed in southern Lebanon by an Israeli strike at just six years old, went viral because of her last written words just days earlier: "I wish that my family and I stay safe during the war."
Since Oct. 8, marking the start of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, children have paid a heavy price. On Nov. 1, Hussein Kourani, 16, became the first among them to succumb to injuries sustained from an Israeli airstrike while returning home on his motorcycle. Five days later, students at the Saint Joseph College of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts in Ain Ebl learned with shock about the deaths of three of their classmates, the Chour sisters: Remas, 14, Taline, 12, and Layan, 10, who were killed alongside their grandmother, Samira Abdel Hussein Ayoub, when an Israeli strike hit their vehicle between Aitaroun and Ainata.
In Shaath, in the Baalbeck region, 11 members of the same family, the Hajj Hassan family, died under the rubble of their building struck by a shell. "They were women with their children, all aged between one month and 10 years," said the town's mukhtar, Ali al-Hajj Hassan, to L'Orient-Le Jour.
Yasmina Nassar. Photo from social media.
Trapped in their homes, entire families have been erased from the civil registry. In the south of Saida, in Kawthariyet al-Sayyad, it was the Kojok family that was laid to rest yesterday afternoon.
Ahmad, 61, and his wife Haifa were killed alongside their two daughters, their son-in-law Ali Makki, and their two granddaughters, Fatima and Joud. Suzie Kojok, born in 1975, was the principal of the public elementary school in the village. Caretaker Lebanese Minister of Education, Abbas Halabi, paid tribute to her, as well as to the two sisters who were teachers at the public school in Shoukin, and a mathematics teacher from the village of Ansar.
Farah Kojok worked at the Zahrani power plant, according to a statement from the public supplier Électricité du Liban. The family had moved into the same apartment in a building emptied of its other residents, according to local mukhtar Mohammad Moussa. "The strike targeted the middle of the building, which collapsed on them. There was no military position in that location," he assured.
