Four migrant workers from Bangladesh, two municipal workers, two young Syrians refugees on a motorbike and one paramedic: in only a few days, their bodies have been brought to the Nabih Berri Governmental Hospital in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.
A ceasefire announced a month ago, and now extended for another 45 days, has done little to curb Israel’s attacks.
This is only a sample, from one city over only a few days. Nabatieh sits about 20km north of the Israeli border – outside the “buffer zone” created by Israel and even further from the front line.
“The situation is as bad as, if not worse than, before the ceasefire came into effect,” Hassan Wazni, the hospital’s director, told The National. “I would not advise anyone to stay in the city.”
On Wednesday, the day of The National’s visit, two people wounded in nearby strikes were brought into the emergency ward: a woman and a man, covered in dust. His body was almost entirely grey, except for red streaks of blood.
Such scenes have become routine for the hospital staff.
A few days earlier, the hospital had received two Syrian nationals: 24-year-old Nada Sleiman and her neighbour and friend, Sakher Al Khtroush, 36, a father of two. Both were hunted down in an Israeli triple drone attack while riding a motorbike.
Ms Sleiman and Mr Al Khtroush are among more than 670 people killed in Israeli strikes since the truce was announced on April 16 – and extended in early May – following the first direct meeting in three decades between Israeli and Lebanese officials in Washington.
During that period, Israel has continued to carry out attacks across Lebanon, extending them far beyond the front line. Hezbollah has also maintained attacks, primarily targeting Israeli troops stationed in the south, but also reaching into Israeli territory.
Despite the ceasefire, images of victims continue to flood Lebanese social media feeds, each at risk of becoming just another number in the overall toll of the war’s devastation.
The war resumed on March 2, when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel, joining the broader conflict against the US and Israel in support of its main backer, Iran.
Israel's subsequent air and ground attacks have killed at least 2,896 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The attacks have displaced nearly a million people from the south and kept Israeli troops within the “yellow line”, a de facto occupied zone comprising 50 Lebanese villages.
Experts said that Israel is seeking to establish a wide buffer zone far beyond the “yellow line”. They said that unlike border towns, control beyond the immediate no-man’s land would not rely on troops on the ground, but would be exercised from the skies.
Killing civilians
Nowhere is the Israeli aerial occupation more visible than in cities such as Nabatieh. Rescuers told The National they observe a pattern of civilians being targeted in successive strikes, even after surviving an initial attack – as with the two Syrian refugees on the motorbike.
Rescuer Mohamed Atwe, who was among the first to arrive at the scene, said he found three impact sites: one next to the scooter, which was largely untouched; one beside Mr Al Khtroush; and, a few metres away, another beside Ms Sleiman, who was bleeding heavily, her body riddled with shrapnel.
Paramedics concluded, based on how they found their bodies, that Ms Sleiman and Mr Al Khtroush had been chased down by firepower, with the young woman surviving the initial two attacks, before being hit by a third as she was running away.
“These strikes on civilians are constant. Sometimes the Israeli army strikes twice, and even a third time when the medical teams arrive at the scene,” Mohamed Atwe, from the Risala emergency service, said.
The Israeli army did not publicly comment on why it targeted the pair.
Mr Atwe was not surprised. “You can clearly see that the Israelis don’t want life to exist in southern Lebanon any more. That’s what is happening on the ground,” he said.
Initially identified by Lebanese media as father and daughter, The National has established that they were not related. Moussa Abou Khaled, a relative of Mr Al Khtroush, said the two met during the war. They were living next to each other in tents along the Saida corniche, both forcibly displaced from the south – Ms Sleiman from Nabatieh and Mr Al Khtroush from Tyre.
Mr Al Khtroush had driven Ms Sleiman to Nabatieh to help her collect belongings from her home. “He was just helping her, doing something humanitarian,” Mr Abou Khaled said. Rescuers said the belongings were still on the motorcycle when they arrived at the scene.
Originally from Al Bukamal in eastern Syria, Mr Al Khtroush fled his country's civil war 15 years ago. Like him, dozens of Syrian refugees have been killed and injured in Israeli strikes since the war resumed. Already marginalised, their deaths have drawn limited attention, in part because identification is more difficult due to the lack of organised family networks and documentation.
'Multilayered' buffer zone
Bassel Doueik, a Lebanon researcher at ACLED, a conflict monitor, said there was “a sense within the Israeli establishment that it needs to create a multilayered buffer zone in the south” to prevent attacks from reaching northern Israel, as the Israeli army has stated.
The first phase, he said, is the “yellow line”, a no-man’s land inside Lebanese territory, similar to what Israel has described as its “Gaza doctrine”. The near-total erasure of villages and towns using bulldozers and controlled demolitions has accelerated in recent weeks.
The outer layers – outside the “yellow line” – are not completely erased, he explained, but are kept under constant threat of attacks, orders to leave and strikes, reshaping life across the whole south of the country.
That strategy is already playing out far beyond the front line. Strikes have hit well north of the Litani river, including in Saksakieh, about 40km from the border.
On May 9, an Israeli strike hit a villa sheltering a family displaced from Jibshit. Nine members of the Fahs family were killed, including Mariam, a baby just a few months old, her mother Jana and her grandmother.
“Israel wants to scare people,” Nader Abbes said. The Fahs family had been staying at his uncle’s villa, next door to where he lives. They had fled bombardment in their village just days before the attack. Neighbours insisted that the family were civilians.
“The scene was harrowing – just pieces of bodies everywhere,” Mr Abbes said. “There is no safety any more. I used to not be afraid, but now everything has changed.”
Hezbollah, Israel's main target, is a militia but also an influential political party. Israel has extended its targets in violation of international humanitarian law to the group’s civilian infrastructure and to civilians with political affiliations, including journalists and rescuers.
Experts have described this as a campaign of collective punishment against areas where Hezbollah holds influence.
But many remain defiant. Youssef Younes, a neighbour who witnessed the attack, said the south “is like my mother and father. Whoever abandons their parents is not worthy. If we leave the south, we betray our family”.
“We will not leave,” he said.
