Syrian Father Buries Wife and Four Children After Beirut Strikes
A Syrian man has laid to rest his wife and four of his five children, victims of the massive wave of Israeli strikes that pounded Beirut earlier this week. The family was buried on Saturday in Deir el-Zour province in northeastern Syria, a somber homecoming far from what they had envisioned when fleeing to Lebanon six years ago.
Bodies Return in Coffins from Lebanon
The bodies, along with that of his six-month pregnant daughter-in-law, arrived in wooden coffins on a bus from Lebanon, their names scribbled on the sides. In al-Sour town, men stood weeping beside the bus before the burial procession, as mourners gathered to offer condolences. The remains of one of his two daughters are still missing, believed trapped under rubble, as search operations concluded three days after the attacks.
This strike was part of roughly 100 carried out by Israel on Wednesday without warning, targeting what the Israeli military described as Hezbollah-linked sites across Beirut and other parts of Lebanon. More than 350 people were killed that day, a third being women and children, marking it the deadliest day in nearly six weeks of war.
Strikes Hit Civilian Areas
Many strikes impacted commercial streets and densely populated neighborhoods in central Beirut, far from conflict zones. Repeated Israeli evacuation warnings have been issued since March 2, when the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.
A Father's Heartbreaking Loss
The father, Hamad al-Jalib, survived because he was away fetching a gas canister while working as the building’s concierge. Upon hearing of the strike in the Ain Mreisseh neighborhood, he rushed back to see a plume of smoke rising from a building behind a mosque across from Beirut’s famous seaside promenade—usually bustling with people.
"The Israeli attack killed my girls, they are innocent, just sitting at home," al-Jalib said. "They were having lunch." He recounted that rescue teams took three days to extract his family's bodies from the rubble, and his 10-year-old daughter Fatima Hamad al-Jalib remains missing. His other children were aged 12, 17, 14, and 13.
Three other Syrian relatives also perished in the Ain Mreisseh strike and were buried on Saturday in al-Shuhail town in Deir el-Zour, after the family split upon returning to Syria. Al-Jalib explained his family had been displaced from their area and moved to Lebanon in 2020 due to local tensions involving tribal groups and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Syrian Refugees Among Casualties
The casualties from Wednesday’s strikes and others across Lebanon have pushed the death toll in over a month of Israel’s war with Hezbollah to more than 1,950 killed and over 6,300 wounded, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. This includes at least 315 Syrians killed and wounded.
It remains unclear how many of those killed on Wednesday were non-Lebanese, as the Health Ministry did not provide a nationality breakdown. Officials report at least 39 Syrians among the dead. Dalal Harb, a spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency, noted the family killed in Ain Mreisseh was not registered with UNHCR. Lebanon hosts about 530,000 Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR, with hundreds of thousands more believed unregistered.
While hundreds of thousands of Syrians have returned from Lebanon since the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024, many remain reluctant due to job shortages and ongoing violence.
Eyewitness Account of the Blast
Al-Jalib’s brother, Jomaa, who also lived in Lebanon, was about 150 meters away at work when the first blast hit. "We ran and we ran, then the second strike happened," he said. He arrived as the building began to collapse, "It was too late to get anyone out. We yelled for them, but no one answered." Ambulances later recovered the bodies, which he identified at a hospital.
Following the burial, men stood shoulder to shoulder in prayer over the fresh graves, a poignant end to a tragic chapter in the ongoing conflict.
