The civilian death toll in Lebanon continues to grow calamitously high in the ongoing Israeli invasion, with airstrikes hitting obvious civilian targets with no apparent military connection. On Tuesday, that came to the town of Tefahta, a southern town just north of the city of Tyre, which itself is also coming under intense attack from Israel.
The attack targeted the three-storey family home of school principal Ahmed Ezzedine. He and his extended family were gathering there after a funeral for his brother-in-law, who had been killed Monday in the village of Marwanieh in a different Israeli airstrike. 19 civilians were killed in the attack.
Overwhelmingly, the victims were members of Ezzedine’s family, including women and several children. They said there was no one but family member residents in the house at the time of the attack.
Still, three other people who just happened to be walking by ended up being killed in the strike. That included Sheikh Abdo Abo Rayya, the local imam. An unidentified number of civilians were also wounded in the strike.
Israel has not commented on the Tefahta strike nor provided any indication why they attacked a civilian home. They attack several civilian homes every day, of course, in Lebanon and beyond, so there seems to be little priority given to even offering flimsy pretexts for that.
Israel invaded Lebanon on September 23. Since then they have killed thousands of people, including a large number of civilians, and displaced more than a million civilians from their homes. They have been urged by the international community to scale back the strikes to reduce civilian casualties, though there is no indication that is even being contemplated.
