Zahra Chami looked through the wreckage of what was a seven-storey building on Thursday, hoping to find anything that belonged to her cousin and his wife, Mohamad and Khatoun Krisht – two of at least 303 people killed the day before in Israel’s attacks on central Beirut.
She and her sister searched for hours. But the devastation was so vast and total that little was recognisable.
Mohammad and Khatoun, who lived on the sixth floor, knew how to enjoy life. They loved poetry, music and socialising. The last time Ms Chami saw them, they were dancing at a relative’s wedding.
She stayed up all night watching rescue operations, hoping they might still be alive under the wreckage.
“But when I saw the building fall on the news yesterday, I knew they were gone,” Ms Chami said. She waved a sweeping hand at the destruction, indicating that no one on the sixth floor could have possibly survived. No part of the building was standing as search teams operated.
Rescuers eventually found the couple's bodies, pulling them out in the early hours of Thursday.
“Israel decided to end their lives. Just like that,” Ms Chami told The National, her voice breaking. She moved between grief and anger as she spoke.
The strike on the building in the upscale neighbourhood of Talet El Khayat – one of eight sites hit in central Beirut, all residential according to rescuers – killed at least eight people. When The National visited the scene, two bodies were still trapped under the rubble. Rescuers, who had worked through the night combing the wreckage, said it would take hours to recover them.
Mr and Ms Krisht are among the hundreds of people killed by Israel in one of the worst attacks on Lebanon in decades – the same day a ceasefire between the US and Iran was announced.
Despite Pakistani mediators saying the deal would include Lebanon, Israel swiftly rejected the claim, launching 100 strikes in just 10 minutes, on what US President Donald Trump had called a “big day for world peace".
Hezbollah, which had initially refrained from fighting after the US-Iran ceasefire announcement, resumed firing at Israel on Thursday following Israel’s massive attack the day before. Israel said that it had struck Hezbollah command centres. But the strikes hit densely populated areas, without warning, during rush hour.
In Beirut, hospitals were quickly overwhelmed. They struggled to cope with hundreds of casualties arriving at the same time. At least a third of Wednesday’s death toll were women, children and the elderly, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
At the Rizk Hospital, Dr Karl Jalad told The National that about 40 per cent of the 42 casualties they received were children and women.
The injuries he saw were harrowing: a child missing a leg, another with his intestines eviscerated. Medical staff were able to save the two children, but many others were killed instantly as their homes collapsed on them.
'They wanted to live peacefully'
Mr Krisht was in his seventies and worked in real estate. His wife, in her sixties, was a poet. “They loved their family and their grandchildren. They were simple people. They had no political affiliation,” Ms Chami said.
“They just loved their country and wanted to live peacefully in it. And that was taken away from them,” she added. She fought back tears as she struggled to reconcile that she would never see them alive again.
For weeks, Lebanon’s government, which is not part of the conflict, has been desperately trying to avert further escalation by calling for direct talks with Israel – a first in a country that does not recognise the country and bans any contact with its citizens.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed to open direct negotiations with Lebanon “at the earliest possible time”.
“The negotiations will focus on the disarmament of Hezbollah from its weapons and the regulation of peace relations between Israel and Lebanon. Israel appreciates the call today by the Prime Minister of Lebanon [Nawaf Salam] to demilitarise Beirut,” he said.
Hezbollah has repeatedly refused direct negotiations with Israel. A 2024 ceasefire, widely seen as a failure, was unable to end Israel's strikes on Lebanon, despite Hezbollah not firing back.
Ms Chami does not have much faith in diplomatic talks. “We’ve seen negotiations, diplomacy – but nothing changes.” And in the end, there is a widespread sentiment that civilians in Lebanon are paying the price of diplomatic prevarication and regional power plays.
“They say they are targeting militants, but that’s not what we see. These are residential buildings. Civilian areas.”
