Lebanese man says IDF strikes killed 12 of his relatives moments before ceasefire

Hassan Abu Khalil’s family miraculously survived six weeks of war in southern Lebanon, but tragedy struck in the final minutes before a ceasefire came into force. An Israeli strike late on Thursday killed 13 of his relatives, leaving him the sole survivor.

Abu Khalil, 36, stepped out to see friends just before midnight, when a US-brokered truce between Lebanon and Israel was meant to halt fighting that had raged since March 2 between Israel and terror group Hezbollah.

“I heard a very powerful strike, and when I came back to the neighborhood, I found this had happened,” Abu Khalil tells Reuters as he watched a bulldozer dig through the mountains of pulverized concrete that was once his home in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre.

“In this building, more than 13 members of my family are missing under the rubble. What then, Israel? Just before the ceasefire, it was one massacre after another against us,” he says.

Later on Friday, Lebanon’s state news agency said rescue teams had recovered 13 bodies and pulled 35 wounded survivors from the ruins of the building that was hit the previous evening. It reported that 15 other people were unaccounted for.

The Israeli military does not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike, but generally has said it has been targeting Hezbollah sites in Lebanon and takes measures to avoid civilian casualties.

Lebanon’s health ministry says 2,294 people have been killed between March 2 and Thursday, when the ceasefire came into force. The toll includes 177 children and 274 women.