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BINT JBEIL, Lebanon: A village in southern Lebanon on Tuesday buried five people, including three children and their father, killed in an Israeli strike over the weekend.
Shadi Charara, a car dealer, was killed while driving home to the southern seaside city of Tyre on Sunday with his wife and four children after having lunch at his father-in-law’s house in the town of Bint Jbeil, a few kilometers from the border with Israel.
Sam Bazzi, the children’s maternal grandfather, told The Associated Press the family thought they were safe because they had no affiliation with Hezbollah.
“We’re regular citizens and we don’t belong to any group,” Bazzi said. “And so we thought we had nothing to do with it and we were just living normally, coming and going.”
The family was only a few hundred meters from Bazzi’s house when a motorcycle passed by, and at the same moment, the Israeli drone struck.
It killed Charara, his twin 18-month-old son and daughter Hadi and Silan, 8-year-old daughter Celine, and the motorcyclist, a local man named Mohammed Majed Mroue. Family members said Mroue was Charara’s cousin but had been passing by chance at the time of the strike, not traveling with the family.
The children’s mother, Amina Bazzi, and her oldest daughter, Asil, survived but were seriously wounded. Bazzi, her face bruised and swollen, was carried on a stretcher through the crowd at the funeral of her husband and children.
After Sunday’s strike, the Israeli military said it was targeting a Hezbollah militant, whom it did not name, and that he “operated from within a civilian population.” It acknowledged that civilians were killed and said that it was reviewing the incident.
At the funeral in Bint Jbeil, the coffins were draped in Lebanese flags, and only Lebanese flags were waving in the crowd. At other funerals in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah banners are often on display.
A US-brokered ceasefire halted the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. That conflict began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza
Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in September 2024.
Since the ceasefire took effect, Israel has continued to launch near-daily airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Israeli officials frequently say it is targeting Hezbollah militants or infrastructure. Hezbollah has only claimed firing across the border once since the ceasefire, but Israel says the militant group is trying to rebuild its capabilities.
Charara’s sister, Amina, who lives in Dearborn, Michigan, said houses belonging to the family were damaged or destroyed in last year’s war, but they had counted themselves lucky that none of their relatives had been harmed.
“We always said thank God we only lost stones and not human beings,” she said. ““The houses and stones can be rebuilt, but how can my brother return?”
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said after the strike that Shadi Charara and his children were US citizens, while family members told the AP that Charara did not have US citizenship but that his siblings and father live in the United States and are citizens. They said Charara had applied to join them and recently received approval but was still waiting for visas.
A US State Department official declined to comment on “personal details.”
The European Union on Sunday condemned the strike and called for “full respect and implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel.”
“Security concerns should be addressed by making full use of the monitoring mechanism established in the framework of the ceasefire agreement,” it said.
Amina Charara said the family in the US had been constantly worried about their relatives in Lebanon.
“My brother was a man who loved life and loved his family. He had nothing to do with politics. He was working to provide for his family,” she said. “What was the fault of the children for Israel to kill them?“

LONDON: “Israel isn’t a democratic country surrounded by enemies, but … an enemy to its surrounding neighbors,” Qatar’s emir told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani was addressing the annual gathering after an Israeli attack earlier this month targeted Hamas negotiators in Doha, killing six people, including a Qatari national.

Israel “is engaged in a genocide (in Gaza), and its leader is proud of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, and he promises that such a state will never be established,” the emir said.

“Israel is surrounded by states who have either signed a peace agreement or who are committed to the Arab Peace Initiative, but Israel doesn’t make do with truces and settlements.

“It desires to impose its will on its surrounding Arab neighbors, and everyone who opposes its will is either antisemitic or a terrorist. Even Israel’s allies realize this fact and reject it.”

The emir thanked the international community for the “solidarity we’ve received in Qatar after the attack (on Doha), including a statement by the (UN) Security Council that has condemned the attack.”

He said the attack was an attempt by Israel to derail Gaza ceasefire negotiations. “Unlike the claim of the prime minister of Israel, this attack isn’t a legitimate right to follow perpetrators of terrorism. It’s an act of a diplomacy that’s dedicated to political assassinations, and it undermines any diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the genocide against the people in Gaza,” he added.

“It’s also an attempt to kill politicians who are members of the delegation that engages in negotiations with Israel while they were studying an American proposal.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to continue the war so as to make Gaza “unliveable,” Sheikh Tamim said.

“Qatari mediation has, in cooperation with Egypt and the US, achieved the release of hostages, and the last agreement was negated by Israel unilaterally, preventing an ability to reach a permanent ceasefire, and the release of all hostages, and the withdrawal of the occupying forces from the Gaza Strip … and the release of Palestinian prisoners. They visit our country and plot to attack it,” he added.

“The Israeli leader wants to continue war. He believes in what is called Greater Israel. He believes that war is an opportunity to expand settlements and to change the status quo in the holy sites (of Jerusalem).”

Sheikh Tamim vowed that Qatar would remain true to its history and legacy, and continue its mediation efforts. 

“We’ll continue to speak the truth, and we’ll engage in diplomacy when our enemies find it easier to use weapons,” he said.

“We’ve engaged to mediate an end to the war and allow for humanitarian access and release hostages, and we’ve faced disinformation campaigns.

“However, these campaigns won’t deter us. We’ll continue our efforts in cooperation and partnership with Egypt and the US.”