Mostly civilians were killed in IDF attack on Lebanon village, BBC finds

Julia Ramadan was gripped by fear as the war between Israel and Hezbollah escalated, having a nightmare that her home was bombed. When she sent a panicked voice message from her Beirut apartment to her brother, he encouraged her to join him in Ain Ebel, a quiet village in southern Lebanon.

“It’s safe here,” he reassured her, “come and stay with us until things calm down.” Earlier that month, Israel had intensified its airstrikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in response to an escalating barrage of rockets from the Iranian-backed militant group, which caused civilian casualties and displaced tens of thousands of people in northern Israel.

Ashraf was convinced that their family's apartment building would be a haven, so Julia joined him. But the next day, on September 29, the apartment block suffered the deadliest single Israeli strike of this conflict. An Israeli missile hit the six-story building, causing the entire structure to collapse and killing 73 people.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the building was targeted because it was a Hezbollah “terrorist command center” and that it had “eliminated” a Hezbollah commander. It also added that “the vast majority” of those killed in the attack were “identified as terrorists.” However, a BBC investigation verified the identities of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and found evidence that only six were linked to Hezbollah’s military wing. None of those we identified appeared to hold senior positions. The BBC World Service also found that the remaining 62 were civilians, 23 of whom were children.

Among the victims were babies just months old, such as Nuh Kobeissi from apartment -2B. In apartment -1C, primary school teacher Abir Harak was killed along with her husband and three sons. Three floors above, Amal Hakaawati was killed with her husband, children, and two granddaughters, three generations wiped out. Ashraf and Julia were very close, sharing everything with each other. “She was like a black box, containing all my secrets,” he said.

On the afternoon of September 29, the siblings had just returned from distributing food to families fleeing the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war. Ashraf was taking a shower, and Julia and their father were in the living room, helping him upload a video to social media. Their mother, Janan, was in the kitchen tidying up. Then, without warning, they heard a deafening explosion. The whole building shook, and clouds of dust and smoke poured into their apartment.

“I was shouting, ‘Julia! Julia!’” said Ashraf. “She replied, ‘I’m here.’ I looked at my father, who was struggling to get up from the sofa because of a leg injury, and saw my mother running towards the door.” Julia’s nightmare was unfolding in reality. “Julia was short of breath and crying so much on the sofa. I tried to calm her down, telling her we needed to get out. Then, there was another strike.”

Video of the attack, shared online and verified by the BBC, shows four Israeli missiles hitting the building. Seconds later, the building collapses. Ashraf and many others were trapped under the rubble. He began calling for help, but the only voice he could hear was his father’s, who told him he could still hear Julia, that she was alive. They could not hear Ashraf's mother.

Ashraf sent a voice message to a nearby neighbor friend to alert them. The next few hours were agonizing. He could hear rescuers searching through the rubble and the wails of residents as they discovered their loved ones dead. “I just kept thinking, please God, don’t let it be Julia. I can’t live without Julia.”

After several hours, Ashraf was finally pulled from the rubble, suffering only minor injuries. He found out that his mother had been rescued but died in the hospital. Julia had suffocated under the rubble. His father later told him that Julia’s last words were calling out for her brother. In November, a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Hezbollah, aimed at ending the conflict. The agreement stipulated that Israeli forces must withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days, and Hezbollah must withdraw its forces and weapons north of the Litani River. With the deadline approaching on January 26, we sought to learn more about what has been the deadliest single Israeli attack on Lebanon in years.

Downstairs from Julia and Ashraf's apartment, Hawla and Ali Fares had been hosting family members displaced by the war. Among them was Hawla’s sister, Batoul, who, like Julia, had arrived just the day before with her husband and two young children. They had fled heavy bombardment in an area near the Lebanese-Israeli border, a Hezbollah stronghold. “We were hesitant about where to go,” said Batoul. “Then I told my husband, ‘Let’s go to Ain Ebel. My sister said their building is safe, and they can’t hear any bombing near them.’”

Batoul’s husband, Mohammed Fares, was killed in the Ain Ebel strike. A pillar fell on Batoul and her children. She said no one responded to her cries for help. She eventually lifted it herself, but her four-year-old daughter, Hawla, was crushed to death. Miraculously, her younger daughter, Malaka, survived. Three floors below Batoul, lived Dennis and Mohyaldin Al-Baba. That Sunday, Dennis had invited her brother, Hisham, over for lunch.

Hisham said the impact of the attack was brutal. “The second missile threw me to the ground… The whole wall fell on top of me.” He was trapped under the rubble for seven hours. “I could hear voices from afar. People were talking. Screams and… ‘Cover her. Move her away. Lift the stone. He’s alive. It’s a child. Lift this child.’ I mean… oh my God. I thought, I’m the last one buried the deepest. No one will know about me. I’m going to die here.”

When Hisham was eventually rescued, he found out that his niece’s fiancé was waiting for news of whether she was still alive. He lied to him, saying she was fine. Three days later, they found her body. Hisham lost four family members – his sister, her husband, and their two children. He told us that he had lost his faith and no longer believes in God. To learn more about those who died, we analyzed data from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, videos, social media posts, and spoke with survivors of the attack.

We specifically wanted to question the IDF’s immediate response to the media after the attack, that the apartment building was a Hezbollah command center. We asked the IDF repeatedly what constituted a command center, but it did not provide a clear explanation. So, we began to sift through social media condolences, cemetery records, public health records, and funeral videos to determine if those killed in the attack had any links to Hezbollah’s military wing. We only found evidence that six of the 68 dead that we identified were linked to Hezbollah’s military wing.

The Hezbollah memorial photos of the six men used the label “mujahideen,” meaning “fighters.” In contrast, senior figures are referred to as “commanders,” and we found that the group did not use such labels to describe those who died. We asked the IDF whether the six Hezbollah fighters we identified were the intended targets of the attack. It did not respond to this question. One of the Hezbollah fighters we identified was Batoul’s husband, Mohammed Fares. Batoul told us that her husband, like many other men in southern Lebanon, was a reservist with the group, but she added that he was never paid by Hezbollah, held no formal rank, and had not participated in any fighting.

Israel views Hezbollah as one of its primary threats, and the group is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, many Western governments, and Gulf Arab states. But in addition to a large and well-equipped military wing, Hezbollah is also an influential political party, holding seats in the Lebanese parliament. In many parts of the country, it is integrated into the social fabric, providing a network of social services. In response to our investigation, the IDF said: “IDF strikes on military targets are carried out in accordance with the relevant rules of international law, including the taking of feasible precautions, and after an assessment that the expected collateral damage and civilian casualties are not excessive in relation to the military advantage expected from the attack.”

It had also earlier told the BBC that it had carried out “evacuation procedures” for the Ain Ebel strike, but everyone we spoke to said they had received no warning. **Target: Lebanon's deadliest strike** On a quiet Sunday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a residential building in Lebanon, killing 73 people. Nawal Al-Maghafi investigates who they were and why the building was attacked. UN experts have raised concerns about the [proportionality and necessity of Israeli airstrikes on residential buildings in densely populated areas of Lebanon, external](https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/un-experts-alarmed-israel-lebanon-conflict-strongly-condemn-escalation-and).

This pattern of targeting entire buildings – leading to high numbers of civilian casualties – is a recurring feature of the latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which began when the group escalated rocket attacks in response to Israel's war in Gaza. Lebanese authorities say that more than 3,960 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon between October 2023 and November 2024, many of them civilians. In the same period, Israeli authorities say that at least 47 civilians have been killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon. At least another 80 Israeli soldiers have died fighting in southern Lebanon or as a result of rocket attacks on northern Israel.

The missile strike in Ain Ebel was the deadliest Israeli attack on a building in Lebanon in at least 18 years. The village remains haunted by its impact. When we visited, more than a month after the attack, a father was still going to the site every day, hoping for news of his 11-year-old son, whose body has not yet been found. Ashraf Ramadan has also returned to the rubble to search for remnants of memories his family had built over the two decades they lived there. He showed me the door to his wardrobe, still decorated with pictures of the football players and pop stars he once idolized. Then, he pulled a teddy bear from the rubble, telling me it had been on his bed. “Nothing I find here can make up for the people we have lost,” he said.