A villager in Mhaibib, southern Lebanon, surveying the damage to his house caused by Israeli bombing on Nov. 28, 2024. (Credit: Aziz Taher/Reuters)
A firefighter, a law enforcement officer, a gravedigger and an entire family were recently killed by Israel despite the cease-fire in Lebanon coming into effect on Nov. 27 between Israel and Hezbollah. The cease-fire, which put an end to more than a year of cross-border hostilities and two months of open war, did not stop the Israeli bombardments, which have caused further casualties. The Israeli army has also destroyed multiple homes with bulldozers or even explosives.
These strikes, mainly targeting southern Lebanon, killed at least 24 people, according to official figures from the Lebanese Health Ministry and information gathered by our correspondents.
Most of the victims were civilians who had returned to their homes to survey damages after initially fleeing their villages in the South and the Bekaa due to Israeli strikes during the two-month war, reported our correspondent in southern Lebanon.
More than 1.3 million people were displaced by Israeli bombardments and sought refuge in relatively safer areas, according to U.N. figures.
The latest victim, Mahmoud Mohammad Bazzi, was a father of six and worked as a gravedigger in his hometown, Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil district, Mohammad Asseily, the village's mokhtar (a local official responsible for records), told L’Orient Today. He was killed Monday morning in an Israeli drone strike on his car near a Lebanese Army post in Bint Jbeil. Four Lebanese soldiers were also wounded in the strike, according to the army.
On Sunday, Dec. 8, another Israeli drone strike targeted a house in the al-Arid neighborhood in Debbine (Marjayoun district), killing a man and a woman.
The previous day, Mohammad Karim, a student at the Lebanese University in Nabatieh, was also killed in a drone strike while riding his motorcycle in Deir Siryan in the Marjayoun district, according to Ali Hassan Ibrahim, the village's mokhtar.
The same day, an Israeli bombardment targeted a house in Beit Lif, near Bint Jbeil, killing five civilians.
Little information has emerged about the victims of these attacks, which killed women and children and were described as a “massacre” on social media.
A shepherd killed in Israeli drone strike after cease-fire
Four days earlier, on Dec. 3, Jamal Saab, a shepherd in his forties and father of four girls and two boys, was killed in an Israeli drone strike while working in a Shebaa field in the Hasbaya district, according to our correspondent.
On the same day, Ali Nabaa, a Lebanese Civil Defense firefighter, was killed in a drone strike as he returned to his house to survey the damage. His body was found the next day in Deir Siryan.
On Dec. 2, a series of Israeli airstrikes, launched in response to the only Hezbollah strike since the cease-fire came into effect, targeted several regions in southern Lebanon.
In Haris in the Bint Jbeil district, a residential building was targeted, killing a family who had just moved to the area: brothers Jamil and Haydar Nasser, the latter's wife, Hala, and their son Mehdi. Two other young men, Abdallah and Hassan al-Ali, were also killed in the attack.
Also on Dec. 2, in Jdeidet Marjayoun, Mahdi Khreis, a Lebanese State Security agent and member of the Civil Defense, was killed during the day in an Israeli drone strike while riding his motorcycle near the town's power plant, according to our information. He was originally from Khiam, a town that was heavily targeted by Israel before the cease-fire.
Later that evening, in Tallousa in the Marjayoun district, four people were killed in another Israeli strike. Their identities have not yet been revealed.
On Nov. 30, an Israeli drone strike targeted Robb Thalathin (Marjayoun), killing two people, including a man who had returned to his house to inspect the damage, according to village residents.
The Israeli army, for its part, claimed to have targeted fighters carrying weapons.
In addition to these victims, several people in southern Lebanon were abducted by the Israeli army.
On Sunday, two Lebanese members of the Sinan family from Ain Qenya in the Hasbaya district were kidnapped while picking olives near the disputed Shebaa farms. They were released Monday via the Israeli-annexed village of Ghajar.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient Le-Jour.
