The funeral of Ahmad al-Mir and his daughter Elissar in Mar Touma, Akkar, on Jan. 28, 2026. (Photo obtained by our correspondent in North Lebanon, Michel Hallak)
BEIRUT — The discovery of 23-year-old Elissar al-Mir's body following a relentless four-day search and rescue mission through the rubble of a building that collapsed on Friday night in Tripoli's impoverished Qobbeh district reignited anger amongst residents, already in shock by the incident that is becoming all too common in their part of the city.
Tributes from locals and people across the country poured in on Wednesday for Elissar and her father, Ahmad al-Mir, whose body had been discovered over the weekend.
The two victims of this tragedy, which occurred on the night of Jan. 23 to 24, were buried early Wednesday afternoon in the family's native village of Mar Touma in the district of Akkar.
Elissar's mother, brother, and sister were rescued from under the rubble over the weekend.
Dozens of people attended and carried the coffins of the father and daughter on their shoulders during the funerals in Mar Touma, according to our northern Lebanon correspondent.
At the village mosque, the president of the Bureau of Islamic Waqfs, Sheikh Malek Jadideh, described an "immense loss" and called on the state to "finally pay attention to the citizens' concerns, after having persisted in neglect to focus only on its own interests." The sheikh said that in Tripoli and the North, "the catastrophe is worsening" and demanded justice for the two "martyrs of negligence."
Lebanese MPs also paid tribute to the victims by observing a minute of silence during Wednesday morning's parliamentary session devoted to the 2026 budget.
A 'dedicated, loyal' young woman
Before the funeral, an emotional tribute was held in memory of Elissar at the city's government hospital, where her coffin was brought.
Her colleagues gathered for a final farewell in a heavy atmosphere of sadness and tears.
Earlier, the hospital had issued a statement offering condolences and honoring the memory of a "dedicated and loyal" nurse. The late nurse's colleagues had staged a sit-in on Tuesday to show solidarity with the Mir family and to demand an investigation into the cause behind the building's collapse.
Reacting to the news of the young woman's death, the municipality of Mar Touma also expressed gratitude to the Civil Defense, all emergency services, and the army for their efforts over the past days.
The end of the search at Qobbeh
In a statement released Tuesday evening, the Civil Defense confirmed that the young nurse's body had been found and pulled out after four days of dedicated operations.
A source familiar with the search efforts in the collapsed building to find the young woman described the extreme difficulty of intervening in such an environment: "Her body was indeed in the stairwell, as we had suspected from the start, which is also where her mother and brother were found alive a few hours after the tragedy. But it must be understood that, when a building collapses, its shape changes radically, and those trapped end up in different places and levels," the source explained.
The source also described "the magnitude of the task for rescue teams," which involved working through the rubble of two adjacent buildings with a total area of 400 square meters.
According to the same source, Civil Defense rescuers tried up until the last moment to work manually in hopes of extracting the young woman alive.
However, "besides the fact that global protocol authorizes the use of heavy machinery after 72 hours of search, we also feared new collapses that would have endangered the rescuers, since the searches had created cavities in the collapsed structure," the source added.
After the announcement that the search had ended, the night was difficult for the people of Tripoli and marked by expressions of anger, according to our northern Lebanon correspondent.
Intense gunfire was reported in the northern city, injuring one person in the head.
Residents laid the blame for the tragedy on the authorities and warned of a "ticking time bomb" if the issue of the city's aging, at-risk buildings is not quickly addressed by the relevant officials.
For his part, MP Ihab Matar said Tuesday that he had submitted a bill to the presidency of Parliament aimed at renovating buildings with cracks and at risk of collapse, as part of a "legislative initiative to protect public safety and preserve citizens' lives," according to the state-run National News Agency.
"This proposal is part of the efforts I have made for years to address this chronic problem, especially in the most affected areas, notably Tripoli, amid economic crises and accumulated neglect," Matar wrote on social media.
'American sponsorship is a guarantee,' says Lebanese-American coordination committee