Lebanese authorities are still working to identify missing people among the hundreds killed a week ago when Israel launched a major co-ordinated attack across the country.
More than 350 people were killed within minutes on April 8 – a third of them children and the elderly – making it one of Lebanon’s bloodiest days in decades.
DNA testing is now the last resort to help grieving families establish the fate of their loved ones and find closure. Lebanese authorities have begun trying to match DNA from those killed with samples collected from relatives.
A security source told The National that eight families of missing people have provided DNA samples and one match has been confirmed so far.
According to data from the Lebanese Red Cross shared with The National, around 18 people, including one child, are still missing. Not all the families impacted are believed to have initiated DNA procedures.
Israel's strikes on residential buildings across Lebanon on April 8 were so powerful that they destroyed and mangled bodies, leaving some victims unrecognisable, medical staff told The National.
Doctors said that first responders brought human remains in bags to hospitals, where they have been stored in refrigerated units, awaiting identification.
Medics said most, if not all, of the victims were not simply collateral casualties; instead, they had been targeted in their homes by missiles that exploded on impact with the buildings.
“These were direct strikes. There were no precautions at all to mitigate the impact on civilians. It was a massacre,” Abbas Attieh, the emergency department chief at the Jabal Amel Hospital in the southern city of Tyre, said.
The conflict resumed on March 2 when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel, partially to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and against Israel’s repeated violations of a ceasefire agreed in 2024. Israel's retaliation has killed 2,124 people so far, including 254 women, 168 children and 88 rescue workers.
Israel’s attacks dramatically expanded on April 8, in what many in Lebanon now call “Black Wednesday”. The Israeli military said it launched 100 strikes in less than 10 minutes against what it described – without providing evidence – as Hezbollah targets. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk denounced the “carnage” that “defies belief”.
Hospital morgues full
Mohammad Zaatari is the director of Rafic Hariri University Hospital, on the outskirts of Beirut, where the Ministry of Health has established an emergency office dedicated to the missing.
Dr Zaatari said the hospital started sending samples from unidentified bodies to laboratories the day after the strikes.
“The process can take days, sometimes more than a week,” he said.
Laboratories have so far established that 19 sets of remains held in hospitals belonged to 12 people, the security source said.
When The National visited the hospital on April 9, a forensic doctor was preparing to collect DNA samples from a body shrouded in a white cover.
“We’re now very busy with identifying the dead. Have you not seen how many they are?” he asked. He declined to comment on numbers and technical details due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Dr Zaatari said the massacre had filled the hospital’s four morgues. Desperate families had rushed there after the attack to check the mangled bodies one after another.
On the day of The National’s visit, a grieving family's dead relative was handed over to them. They gathered in silence at the entrance to the morgue as men carried in a white coffin.
But others were unable to recognise their relatives due to the condition of the bodies, Dr Zaatari said.
One of Lebanon's 'hardest days'
Hospitals across Lebanon were overwhelmed in the immediate aftermath of the April 8 attacks.
Casualties with devastating injuries consistent with high-calibre shrapnel immediately began to stream in. Doctors said people arrived with multiple trauma, intestines eviscerated, limbs almost severed, catastrophic blood loss, concussion and broken pelvises.
“It was extremely difficult. Ambulances were arriving all at once with injured and deceased,” said Karl Jallad, chief medical officer at Beirut's LAU Medical Centre, also known as Rizk Hospital. “It was one of the hardest days in Lebanon’s history.”
Among them was a 15-year-old boy who lost his leg below the knee. His brother survived with severe abdominal injuries. Their mother was killed and another sibling remains missing. “And that’s just one family,” said Dr Jallad.
Rizk Hospital’s emergency response plan was triggered within minutes of the strikes. Elective procedures were halted, staff were redeployed and arriving patients were triaged into zones based on severity.
Five children were among those admitted, including two to intensive care. Two other children were among the dead on arrival.
“The amplitude of the attack, combined with the lack of warning, meant many densely populated areas were hit simultaneously,” Dr Jallad said. “That immediately creates mass casualties.”
The sheer volume of critically injured patients strained resources. “The capacity of the hospital was reached,” he said. “But we adapted. We always do.”
In Jabal Amel, Dr Attieh said all 50 patients required surgery. Some died on the operating table.
“All the injuries were severe. Either they needed amputations, or they presented with internal bleeding, shrapnel and metal fragments in the abdomen, or head trauma,” he said.
“There were cases with severe facial injuries – parts of the face were destroyed,” he added. Dr Attieh, who is experienced in war medicine, said nothing could compare to what he saw that day.
As grieving families still search for their loved ones, Lebanon has initiated historic direct talks with Israel, hoping to negotiate a ceasefire.
But, despite a preliminary meeting on Tuesday, Israel’s air and ground operations in Lebanon have continued, and the population's expectations that they will soon halt are low.
