'They shot at her dead body': Family recounts Israeli breach of ceasefire in southern Lebanon

Tanoukhi family says they were fired upon by Israeli army while attempting to bury a loved one, despite having permission

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The bullet-riddled body of Amira Tanoukhi has been lying in an ambulance for a week, waiting to be buried at a cemetery in Khiam, southern Lebanon.

Twice her family tried to bury the elderly woman, who was killed days earlier in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs as she slept. But twice the family were fired at by Israeli tanks while approaching the cemetery, barely escaping, they told The National.

“They shot at her dead body. Why would anyone shoot at a corpse? Are they afraid of the dead?” asked Abbas Tanoukhi, her nephew.

Their account comes despite a ceasefire having taken effect between Israel and Hezbollah, after 13 months war, two of which featured intense Israeli air bombardment of Lebanon. Violations of the deal in recent days have threatened to derail the fragile truce.

Since the ceasefire began, Israel has bombed Lebanon several times, killing at least 12 people, including civilians. It has struck a Lebanese army site, injuring a soldier, and shot at journalists, in addition to the incident at Khiam.

Israel has imposed a curfew on all Lebanese villages south of the Litani river, which runs approximately 30km from the Lebanon-Israel border, and has banned access to several villages near the boundary, from which it has 60 days to withdraw in accordance with the agreement. Hezbollah has launched two rockets since the truce took effect, which it said were a “warning” for Israeli breaches.

The Tanoukhi family said they had believed the ceasefire would allow them to return to Khiam – a city that witnessed fierce ground battles during the war – to bury Amira. On Friday morning, they prepared her body and set off south, having obtained permission from UN peacekeeping forced Unifil and the Lebanese army.

“We didn’t go recklessly. We followed the process, got the necessary permissions. It’s a ceasefire. We were within our rights," Mr Tanoukhi said. "We want to bury our dead in our land. We never imagined we’d be attacked during a truce.”

Smashed tombs

Mr Tanoukhi recounted the experience for The National, still bearing scars on his hand and legs as he sat in his living room in Beirut’s southern suburbs, to where he fled months ago during Israeli bombing.

They had been at the cemetery about 10 minutes when four Israeli Merkava tanks approached, he said. “The tanks entered the cemetery; they were about 100 metres away from us.”

An Israeli soldier disembarked from one tank and ordered the family to leave, but they refused. “We didn’t want to surrender. These are dead people – what threat could we possibly pose?” Mr Tanoukhi said.

However, the tanks began advancing. The family quickly left their vehicle and the body they had come to bury. That was when the Israeli army opened fire, they said. “Bullets, bombs – they threw everything at us,” Mr Tanoukhi told The National.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon may constitute war crimes, The National finds

The family ran for three hours under fire until they reached an army checkpoint at the entrance to the area, they said. “There, we spoke to the Lebanese army again, and they told us we had a 30-minute permission to conduct the funeral,” Mr Tanoukhi said.

Reassured by the renewed guarantee, a smaller group of them who were undeterred returned to the cemetery, only to find the vehicle they had left earlier had been destroyed. “They had shot at the ambulance and her dead body. You could see blood dripping from her,” Mr Tanoukhi said. The ambulance was riddled with bullet holes, he added.

“It is a cemetery, no missiles, no resistance, no one, just graves and dead,” he said.

Mr Tanoukhi began filming the scene. The short clip, which shows a crushed vehicle and smashed tombs, is suddenly interrupted by relentless gunfire.

He shared some of the footage with The National. His relatives, in tears, can be seen after fleeing. He said it then took them another five hours to get back to the army checkpoint.

The family still does not know when Amira can be laid to rest. Mr Tanoukhi said he was not “1 per cent” fearful during the ordeal. “I felt I needed to document, I needed to show the world the crimes.”