SHEBAA, Lebanon — Once the excavator moved away, the Red Cross workers stepped gingerly onto the mound of rubble, their backs stooped as they examined what remained of lives lived in what had been seven apartments.
A sofa cushion. A patterned blanket still in its transparent bag. A box labeled “My first baby walker.†A kettle. A broken plastic toy gun with an orange handle.
Down the street, a mule lay panting on its side, its skin lacerated from shrapnel.
“If you see wasps gathering around a spot, that means there’s a body part,†said a rescue worker to two of his colleagues. He shooed the wasps away as he inspected a crimson smear on the rubble. A colleague beside him carried a yellow nylon bag, a quarter-full of scorched pieces of flesh.
For Shebaa, a postcard-perfect mountaintop village on Lebanon’s southeastern tip, the calamity came around 3 a.m. Friday, when Lebanese officials say two Israeli missiles lanced through the Zahra family‘s three-story building. The resulting blasts pulverized the structure, and smashed the roof and floor of the four-story building next door like a fist punching layer cake.
Authorities said nine people — all from the family of Hussein Zahra, a shepherd — were killed, including two children, ages 4 and 11, and four women.
One of them, Khadhra Zahra, was pregnant and due next month, said Mohammad Al-Saadi, 23, operations chief of Shebaa’s civil defense.
“I’ll never forget it,†he said, referring to the sight of the pregnant woman’s body. “It’s the worst thing I ever saw in my life.â€
The Israeli military declined to comment on the Shebaa attack, referring to a previous statement that it was “continuing to strike terrorist targets belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon,†and that it was “continuing to operate to degrade and dismantle Hezbollah’s capabilities in Lebanon.â€
It did not appear the family members were targeted, but it was unknown who else might have used or occupied the building, or if Israel mistakenly targeted it.
The area around Shebaa has been a long-standing tinderbox.
The Lebanese town of Shebaa lies just north of Shebaa Farms, a disputed sliver of adjacent land at the intersection of the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Since 1967, Israel has occupied Shebaa Farms. Both Lebanon and Syria say Shebaa Farms belongs to Lebanon.
Hezbollah says reclaiming Shebaa Farms is one of the reasons for its fight with Israel. When Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel a year ago, Israeli bases in Shebaa Farms were a frequent target, particularly in recent months. Fighters from Lebanon have also attempted to cross into Israel via the disputed area, leading to brief clashes there with Israeli military.
The tragedy in Shebaa is one of many. Since last week, Israeli warplanes have conducted thousands of strikes across Lebanon, bombing Hezbollah-dominated areas in a bid to destroy the Lebanese Shiite militant group, which is backed by Iran and classified as a terrorist organization by the United States.
More than 1,000 Lebanese people have been killed and thousands more injured, authorities say. In addition, a million have been forced to flee the country’s south and eastern regions as well as parts of the capital, Beirut, Lebanese officials say.
Israel says it is attacking Hezbollah positions and arms caches across the country. It accuses Hezbollah of using residential neighborhoods and civilian buildings as cover for rocket launchers aimed at Israel.
Nearly 60,000 people in northern Israel have been forced to flee their homes amid Hezbollah attacks. Israel says one such attack killed 12 children playing soccer in Israeli-controlled Magdal Shams nearby. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the strike.
Residents in Shebaa, a town of mostly Sunni Muslims, say Shebaa has no allegiance to Hezbollah. They said those killed Friday were civilians.
“This man was a shepherd. His sons too. We’re all shocked by this. Why kill them?†said Mohammad Al-Nabaa, 23. “You saw the mule back there. Is it Hezbollah? Was that Israel’s target?â€
More than 10 hours after the strike in Shebaa, Al-Saadi and the rescue crews were still looking for the bodies. It had taken a long time to go through the wreckage. The excavator needed to remove large rubble could barely make it up the steep, winding road to the apartment building.
Evidence of the missile’s power was all around. The shock wave had ripped out walls of neighboring structures, hurled cars and shaken houses almost a mile away. A fine layer of gray dust covered almost every surface not blown away.
Ibrahim Al-Nabaa, a mukhtar, or town elder, said he was unaware of any Hezbollah fighters or weapons in the neighborhood.
He said that despite all the recent fighting, the exchange of fire stayed on town’s outskirts or in the valleys. That was why most of the townsfolk had remained, even as the fighting escalated.
“Everything changed after this strike. Half of the people have already left,†he said.
Finally rescue workers called the search off. One rescue worker walked down to the injured mule and poured water from a plastic bottle into its mouth. The rest drove drove in their ambulance to meet the Zahra relatives in the town’s center. The excavator inched after them, its roar slowly fading down the mountain.
The townsfolk had assembled at the Farooq mosque, hoping the recovery of the bodies would finish in time for them to be buried during noon prayers. But then the muezzin came on the loudspeaker, announcing the burial was postponed until the remains could be certified by health ministry officials.
When the crowd filtered out, Zahra’s sister Suad, 62, came out reciting a mourning chant. “What’s Israel doing? It’s killed us. It’s taken our land,†she said. “They’re choking us.â€
Then followed Zahra’s daughter, Yasmin. The other women gathered around her, one of them steadying her with a hand under the arm. As Yasmin walked down the street, she stumbled every few steps, repeating “My father, my brother. They never harmed anyone. ...They’re all gone. They were the light of my eyes. They’re all gone.â€
Mohammad Zahra, Khadhra’s husband and the father of the unborn baby, was unable to speak. He looked dazed, his blue eyes suffused with red. Every second or so, his entire upper body was racked by a sob.
His father and the other neighbors closed ranks around him as they too began to cry. Haltingly, they led Mohammad up the path to the family home.
On Saturday, residents said they received warnings from the Israeli military to evacuate because the town would be bombed. Later that night, the town was hit by five additional airstrikes, according to Al-Nabaa and Al-Saadi.
By then Shebaa was almost completely deserted, save for Saadi, a few of the other civil defense personnel and people too old or too poor to move.
“The rest of the Zahra family left,†Al-Saadi said in a phone interview Sunday. ‘“They buried their loved ones on Friday. Now they can’t go back to see their graves.â€
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