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Children’s toys in rubble of deadly apartment block strike in Lebanon
Children’s toys are still scattered around, half buried in the rubble. A wedding picture hanging on the wall shows a bride bending over backwards in her groom’s arms. Baby photographs still hang on the stone wall.
“We’ve lost everything,” Mohammad tells us. “This is collective punishment.”
Mohammad in the remains of the damaged building
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Thirty-two people lived in this shattered block. We can still make it up the stairs but several floors seem to have collapsed on each other and the roof is dangerously buckled.
Five families lived in this block altogether.
The missile did not even hit this block dead-on. It appears to have been aimed at their neighbour’s house – a separate building behind them.
The neighbour was a Hezbollah supporter. They were aware of that but say they knew very little else about him or what he did. He was at home with his wife and six children when the missile landed. All of them were killed.
In Mohammad’s block, the young bride who we saw pictured was his nephew’s wife. Amwar, 26, was at home with their two young children, two-year-old Eliah and three-year-old Abbas. The two toddlers survived. Their mother did not. His nephew Makadi was away working, so he survived.
Mohammad’s nephew and his wife on their wedding day. The young woman was killed in the strike
We are in part of the old town of Tyre and the alleyways are small, with homes packed in.
A map of the clashes between Israel and Lebanon, with Tyre on the coast
About 15 homes seem to be impacted by the blast with broken walls or roofs barely intact. There’s a baby seat covered in dust and a pink bicycle lying on its side. Someone’s washing outside another adjacent house is caked in dust.
Yet Mohammad will not leave. We find him sitting under a nearby tree with a few of his children. Many of his family were injured.
“A few head wounds, one of my relatives hurt their back. My sister looks entirely different because her face is so injured.”
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Explosions in Beirut as Iran targets Israel
But he brushes all this off as nothing. I wonder whether he’s in shock.
“Why would I leave?” Mohammad asks me. “Where would I go? Those who have left have nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. This is all I have. I’m not going.”
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Lebanon is enduring the country’s largest displacement of citizens in its history, as people flee Israeli bombing and run from areas Israel has told them are Hezbollah locations and are likely to be targeted.
There are approximately one million people on the run or impacted, according to the Lebanese caretaker prime minister.
Now many people are fearful about what an Israeli ground invasion means.
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The Israelis have indicated it will be “limited” and it is “targeting Hezbollah infrastructure” – but whatever the aim or intention, the bombs and missiles are having a far greater impact beyond Hezbollah.
There’s very little talk so far about the Iranian attack on Israel. It’s made no difference to the Lebanese people on the ground.