Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut on Nov. 26, 2024, in the midst of the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Credit: Ibrahim Amro/AFP)
On Tuesday afternoon, on the eve of the cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel, the apartment of Hezbollah MP Amine Cherri's family in Burj Abi Haidar was bombed amid a frenzy of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, including on central Beirut.
Here's what we know about the strike, based on information provided by local sources.
The targeted location
The strike hit a building belonging to the Cherri family, located on Majdalani Street, perpendicular to Al-Maarri artery, to the right of the Mazraa corniche when coming from the Beirut National Museum. It is close to the Fakhreddine al-Maani public secondary school for girls, which shelters displaced persons.
A drone launched two missiles shortly before 6 p.m. One destroyed the Cherri family’s apartment, while the second hit an apartment in a neighboring building but did not explode. The army visited the site of the strike on Thursday.
The Israeli army had not issued a prior evacuation order for this building.
The victims
The strike killed three people and injured 12, announced the Health Ministry in a provisional toll released the following day. Further examination of human remains is required before determining the final toll.
The death of Mahmoud Cherri, Amine Cherri's brother, was announced on social networks and confirmed to L'Orient Today by a source close to the MP.
According to our sources, two neighbors were also killed.
Imad Cherri, another brother of the Hezbollah MP, was among the wounded.
Amine Cherri was not in the apartment at the time of the strike. Contacted by L’Orient Today, he was not immediately available to comment on the attack.
A few hours before his death, Mahmoud posted a message on his Facebook account announcing that an Israeli strike had destroyed “our homes and our supermarket,” without specifying in which neighborhood.
He then published a photo of himself making the victory sign on the rubble, paying tribute in his message to the "young people who were martyred or were wounded defending our dignity.”
Context
Shortly before the strike, and following an Israeli attack that destroyed a building in the Noueiri neighborhood on Ma’moun Street in Beirut (very close to Burj Abi Haidar), the MP had accused Israel of “taking revenge on the Lebanese.”
He had declared that “the Israeli aggression on Beirut only targets civilians” and that “Israel seeks to get revenge on all Resistance fighters.”
He added that the Israeli army had achieved “no victories” on the ground, and said he did not have any first-hand information on the cease-fire that was being prepared.
Throughout Tuesday, a few hours before the cease-fire was announced and came into effect, Israeli aircraft bombed several Beirut neighborhoods, including Noueiri, Ras Beirut, Mar Elias and Khandaq al-Ghamiq, with or without prior warning. It also launched a 20-missile attack in less than two minutes on Beirut's southern suburbs, shelled the Baalbeck region and southern Lebanon and struck border crossings with Syria in northern Lebanon almost simultaneously.
While Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Oct. 8, 2023 have not killed any Hezbollah MPs, several of them have lost relatives, including Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, who lost his son in a strike in southern Lebanon, and Ali Ammar, whose son also died in the pager attacks on Sept. 17.
This article was corrected on November 30 at 12pm. While the parents of visual artist Ali Cherri were sadly killed in the Burj Abi Haidar strike, they are not related to the Hezbollah MP.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour.
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