Jawad Younes, 11, and his cousins were playing football in the middle of their house, as they used to do. His younger brother, four-year-old Mehdi, had joined them but got tired, so Jawad took him home and gave him to his mother before returning to the game. Minutes later, the Israeli strike came.
The target was Jawad’s uncle’s house. The explosion shook neighboring buildings and knocked Jawad’s siblings home. As their mother, Malak Meslmani, tried to help them, she thought only of Jawad.
“I was taking my children out of the house, but when I ran to get them, I shouted, ‘Jawad’,” she said. “My heart told me.”
His son was killed instantly in an Israeli strike on March 27 in Saksakieh, which also killed his cousin and injured several other children.
Jawad’s uncle was also killed. Meslmani called him a citizen. But like many Shia families in southern Lebanon, the family were staunch supporters of the militant and political party Hezbollah, which was founded in the 1980s to fight Israel’s occupation of the area.
Jawad and his cousin are among 168 children killed – out of a total of more than 2,100 people – by Israeli strikes in six weeks of renewed war between the country and Iran-backed Hezbollah, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.
Israel routinely strikes suspected Hezbollah terrorists or officials in their homes without warning, often far away from their families, in apartments surrounded by disaffected neighbors. The Israeli army rarely mentions its strikes but says it is taking steps to reduce casualties – including children – and accuses Hezbollah members of mixing with the population. The families of the murdered children accuse Israel of committing war crimes because of the high death toll.
As peace talks between Israel and Lebanon begin in Washington, the search for the dead continues in Beirut after a major attack by Israeli forces on Wednesday.
At least two Israeli civilians – both adults – and 13 soldiers have been killed in the ongoing war with Hezbollah, according to Israeli figures. One of the civilians was killed by Israeli stray fire.
The Israeli military did not deny that children were killed in its strikes in Lebanon but said it was targeting Hezbollah centers and hideouts. The force claims to have killed hundreds of Hezbollah operatives but has provided little evidence.
Under international law governing armed conflict, it is illegal to directly target civilians, but collateral damage – harming civilians when you strike a specific military target – is permitted when compared to the expected military benefits of any particular strike.
The Israeli military told The Associated Press in a statement that its strikes follow the law, including “principles of separation, moderation, and precautionary measures.”
Charles Trumbull, an assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina who studies the law and ethics of armed conflict, said it is difficult to assess whether the threshold has been reached without knowing the objectives of the strike and whether the military knew children were present.
“The way they know that children can be hurt or killed in these strikes, and as an ethical issue, I think that should affect the statistics,” he said.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, who has worked extensively in Gaza and Lebanon and runs a treatment program for some of the most war-torn children at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, said most of the cases he has seen are “children crushed under the rubble of their homes.”
A whole life overshadowed by war and loss
Ten-year-old Zeinab al-Jabali used to tag along wherever her father went: the corner store, the mountains surrounding their village in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Now the father, Hassan al-Jabali, lies in a Beirut hospital where doctors are treating his wife and three older daughters, all injured in the strike that killed Zeinab.
War has overshadowed most of al-Jabali’s life. In 1982, her brother – then 10, like Zeinab – was killed by an Israeli missile.
On March 5, al-Jabali’s wife and daughters were preparing iftarthe meal that breaks the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan, at his wife’s sister’s house when the plane was hit.
Al-Jabali admitted that his brother-in-law – who was killed – “in the past was associated with the resistance,” referring to Hezbollah.
“But they hit him at home, in a house full of children, full of girls,” said al-Jabali, who heard the explosion in another part of the village and found out that people were killed when he rushed to check on his family.
He said that his wife still does not know that Zeinab is dead; He feared that the grief would jeopardize his recovery.
In response to questions about the strikes that killed Jawad and Zeinab, the Israeli military did not provide details about the targets.
Many Lebanese accused Hezbollah of plunging their country into war when it fired missiles across the border on March 2, two days after the US and Israel attacked Iran. But for some, the devastation of Israeli strikes has strengthened their support.
“Now we are stuck in opposition like never before,” said Meslmani, Jawad’s mother.
