An 11-year-old boy was playing football with nine cousins in the courtyard of a family compound in southern Lebanon when an Israeli air strike reduced the home to rubble. Jawad Younes and his 41-year-old relative Ragheb Younes were killed in the attack, which struck the Younes family property in Saksakiyeh shortly after 13:00 local time on Friday. Five people survived. The two were buried side by side in the village on Saturday.
Among the wounded was Jawad’s aunt, Zeinab, who was transported to a nearby hospital where she is being treated for a broken spine and a fractured leg. The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment on the intended target of the strike.
The funerals drew mourners from across the community. One of the bodies was draped in Hezbollah‘s yellow flag. The grief was compounded by fresh loss: another family in the same neighbourhood had buried two children and their mother the previous day, also killed in Israeli bombardment.
Saturday brought further carnage. Three Lebanese journalists were killed when an Israeli strike hit their media vehicle in what Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned as a ‘brazen crime.’ Ali Shoeib, a correspondent for Al Manar TV, died in the attack alongside Fatima Ftouni and Mohamed Ftouni of Al Mayadeen channel.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the strike and described Shoeib as a ‘terrorist’ affiliated with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, though the military provided no evidence to substantiate the claim that he held any military role. The targeting of journalists working in an active conflict zone drew immediate international attention and sharp criticism from Beirut.
Hours later, five paramedics were killed in an Israeli air strike on the town of Zoutar, adding to a mounting toll of civilian and humanitarian workers caught in the offensive.
Lebanese health officials report that more than 1,100 people have been killed since the current escalation began. Israeli ground forces continue to advance in southern Lebanon as part of an ongoing military campaign that has battered towns and villages across the country since 2 March. Israel maintains that its operations are directed exclusively at Hezbollah targets.
The scale of displacement has reached crisis proportions. The United Nations refugee agency warned on Friday that more than one million people are now displaced within Lebanon, a figure that underscores the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding alongside the military campaign. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel earlier this month, a move Israel cited as justification for intensifying its operations.
For the Younes family, the geopolitical dimensions of the conflict offer little comfort. A child who had been kicking a football in a family courtyard was dead before the afternoon was out, buried the following morning in a village cemetery that is filling with fresh graves.
