A Report from Israel’s Attack on a Funeral in Lebanon

By Roqayah Chamseddine | September 19, 2024 | 11:30am

Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images

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A Report from Israel’s Attack on a Funeral in Lebanon

BEIRUT — The wave of explosions across Lebanon stemming from Israel’s targeting of electronic devices—from Beirut to the southern villages—have caused the deaths of at least 37 people, including two children: Muhammad Bilal Kanj, and Fatima Abdallah. The number of injured is expected to surpass 5,000, with many suffering life altering wounds that range from the loss of facial features to limbs. A bride and groom, recently married, were both left blind by the Israeli attack. Lebanese ophthalmologist Dr. Elias Warraq said more than 60 percent of his patients have ended up with an eye removed.

“In my 25 years of practice, I have never removed as many eyes as yesterday,” he said.

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On Wednesday, in the Southern suburb, crowds gathered to bid farewell to three Hezb’Allah members and a child, Muhammad Bilal Kanj, who was killed after an attack that took place in Hai al-Masbagha. The procession, which was scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. local time, was about to begin; child scouts dressed in their uniforms passed by holding placards with the image of Kanj, grieving relatives made their way through the throng of mourners, and people, clutching baskets of flower petals, openly wept as they waited to welcome the bodies of their loved ones.

At approximately 5 p.m. there was a loud boom, immediately assumed to be caused by an Israeli jet breaking the sound barrier from above, and then—suddenly—screaming ensued as witnesses confirmed it was another cyber-attack through some kind of explosion. As smoke billowed through the crowd, a woman walked by, her hands drenched in blood. Led away by someone saying they would take her home, she refused. “I don’t want to go home, I want to stay here,” she said. “Not even the devil himself could devise such brutality,” someone cried out through the chaos.

What is being characterized and praised as a “targeted” operation by many delighted Western media analysts was carried out during a congested funeral march, with countless children in attendance.

Israel’s latest campaign of terror against Lebanon and its people is essential to its goal of undermining the Lebanese military efforts on the Northern front—an attempt to not only establish a “new phase of the war” as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said and increase the cost of Hezb’Allah’s operations, but to also try to break the will of the Lebanese people and turn them against resistance efforts on behalf of Gaza. These attempts have been unsuccessful, as even now Lebanese citizens across the nation are offering not just blood but their own bodies in solidarity with the wounded, without hesitation. A young man from the southern village of Arab Selm made a public appeal that he is willing to give “an eye, a retina, a liver, a kidney, or whatever is needed.”

“By God, I swear I am ready to give anything, I am ready. We are not better than you. You are our pride and honor. To say we are indebted to you is no longer enough, and my heartache is great,” he wrote.

Despite this new phase of psychological and physical warfare, the collaborative Israeli-American project to sow division and undermine Palestinian-Lebanese resistance efforts has failed along the Northern front so far. In response to Israel’s attacks on the villages of Majdal Selm, Blida, and Kafr Kila, which resulted in multiple casualties, Hezb’Allah unleashed a barrage of strikes against several Israeli military targets, including in the area of Ya’ara in the Western Galilee, what was once the ethnically cleansed Palestinian village of Khirbat al-Suwwana.

“In support of our steadfast people in the Gaza Strip and in the backing of its valiant and honorable resistance, and in response to the enemy’s attacks on the steadfast southern villages, [Hezb’Allah] fighters launched an aerial operation […] scoring accurate hits on their targets”, read a statement from Hezb’Allah. The Israeli Defense Forces announced that this strike killed two soldiers and wounded several others in the IDF.

In a highly anticipated speech across Lebanon from Hezb’Allah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, he said “When the enemy planned out this attack, they assumed there were at least 4,000 pagers spread out across all of Lebanon. This means that the enemy had the intention of murdering 4,000 people in a single minute, not accounting for other casualties.”

This attack was unprecedented, Sayyed Nasrallah explained, not only in the history of Lebanon and in the battle against Israel but “possibly even in the history of the world.” Emphasizing his commitment to Gaza, Nasrallah reiterated that the Lebanese front’s military operations will not stop unless the aggression on Gaza does. “In the name of the martyrs, the wounded, the ones who lost their eyes and palms, and in the name of every person who has taken on the responsibility of supporting Gaza, we tell Netanyahu and Gallant: the Lebanese front will not stop until the war on Gaza ends.”

Despite the jabbering of political analysts, there is no way of predicting future developments between Hezb’Allah and Israel, but one thing is certain, that so long as the genocide in Gaza endures, the military operations on the Northern front will continue unabated, as explained by Hezb’Allah’s Secretary General: “The only things lying between us and you are the days, the nights and the battlefield.”