Mostly civilians died in the attack of ID against a Lebanese village, the BBC found

Julia Ramadan was horrified – the war between Israel and Hezbollah escalated, and she had dreamed of a nightmare that her family home had been bombarded. When she sent her brother a panic voice note from her apartment in Beirut, he encouraged her to join him in Ain El Delb, a sleeping village in southern Lebanon.

“It’s safe here,” he reassured her. – Come and stay with us as things calm down.

Earlier that month, Israel strengthened air campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon in response to the escalating missile attacks from Iran-backed armed group that killed civilians and chased tens of thousands of the homes in Severn Israel.

Ashraf was convinced that their family’s residential block would be a refuge, so Julia joined him. But the next day, on September 29, he was the subject of the deadliest single Israeli attack in this conflict. Stripped by Israeli missiles, the entire six -storey building collapsed, killing 73 people.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) say the building was directed because it was a “terrorist command center” of Hezbollah and “eliminated” Hezbollah commander. It is added that the “vast majority” of the killed in the impact is “confirmed that they are terrorist agents”.

But the BBC Eye investigation confirmed the identity of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and revealed evidence that only six were related to the military wing of Hezbollah. None of those we identified seemed to have a higher rank. The BBC World Service also found that the other 62 were civilians – 23 of them children.

Among those killed are babies only a few months old, such as Nuh Kobacey in an apartment -2b. In an apartment -1c school teacher Abir Halak was killed with her husband and three sons. Three floors above, Amal Hakavati died with three generations of his family – her husband, children and both grandchildren.

Ashraf and Julia have always been close, sharing everything with each other. “She was like a black box that keeps all my secrets,” he says.

In the afternoon on September 29, the brothers and sisters had just returned home from giving out food to families who had fled the battle. Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon were displaced by the war.

Ashraf was in the shower, and Julia was sitting in the living room with their father, helping him upload a video to social media. Their mother Janan was in the kitchen and clearing.

Then, without warning, they heard a deafening crash. The whole building shook and a huge cloud of dust and smoke poured into their apartment.

“I was screaming” Julia! Julia! “Says Ashraf.

“She replied,” I’m here. “

“I looked at my father, who was struggling to get out of the couch due to an existing trauma on my leg, and I saw my mother running toward the front door.”

Julia’s nightmare was playing in real life.

“Julia was hyperventilated, crying so hard on the couch. I was trying to calm her down and told her we had to go out. Then there was a new attack.”

Strike videos, shared online and confirmed by the BBC, reveal four Israeli rockets flying in the air to the building. Seconds later, the block collapses.

Ashraf, along with many others, was blocked under the ruins. He began to shout, but the only voice he heard was the one of his father, who told him that he was still hearing Julia and that she was alive. None of them could hear Ashraf’s mother.

Ashraf sent a voice note to friends in the neighborhood to warn them. The next few hours were painful. He could hear the rescuers sift the debris – and the residents who were sobbing when they found their close dead. “I continued to think, please, Lord, not Julia. I can’t live this life without Julia. “

Ashraf was finally removed from the ruins hours later, only with minor injuries.

He discovered that his mother had been rescued but died in the hospital. Julia was suffocating under the ruins. His father later told him that Julia’s last words were calling her brother.

In November, an agreement was agreed to terminate the fire between Israel and Hezbollah in order to end the conflict. The agreement gives a 60-day period for the Israeli forces to withdraw from South Lebanon and to Hezbollah to withdraw its forces and weapons north of the Litani River. As the deadline of January 26 approaches, we tried to find out more about the most deadly single Israeli attack on Lebanon for years.

In the apartment under the one of Julia and Ashraf, Howra and Ali Farez, they accepted family members displaced by the war. Among them was the sister of Hava Batul, who, like Julia, had arrived the previous day – with her husband and two young children. They have escaped intense bombing near the border between Lebanon and Israel, in areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

“We hesitated where to go,” Batul says. “And then I told my husband,” Let’s go to Ain El Delb. My sister told me that their building was safe and that they could not hear any bombing nearby. “

Batul’s husband Mohammed Fares was killed in the attack in Ain El Delb. A pillar fell on Batul and her children. She says no one has responded to her calls for help. She finally managed to lift him alone, but her four-year-old daughter Haura was deadly crushed. Miraculously, her baby Malak survives.

Three floors under Batul lived Deniz and Mohealdin al-Bab. That Sunday, Dennis had invited her brother, Hisham at lunch.

The impact of the strike was brutal, says Hisham.

“The second rocket hit me on the floor … The whole wall fell on me.”

He spent seven hours under the ruins.

“I heard a voice far. People talk. Screams and … “Cover it. Remove it. Lift the stone. He is still alive. This is a child. Raise this child. “I mean … Oh, Lord, I’m the last to die here.

When he was finally saved, he found his niece’s fiancé waiting to hear if he was alive. He lied to him and told him she was fine. They found her body three days later.

Hisham loses four family members – his sister, his son -in -law and their two children. He told us that he had lost his faith and no longer believes in God.

To find out more about the dead, we analyzed data from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, videos, social media publications, and conversations with survivors of the attack.

We especially wanted to question the answer to the media ID – immediately after the attack – that the residential block was the command center of Hezbollah. We repeatedly asked IDF what a command center was, but they did not explain.

That is why we began to review honors on social media, graves, health records and funeral videos to determine if the killed in the attack had a military connection with Hezbollah.

We were able to find only evidence that six of the 68 dead we identified were related to the military wing of Hezbollah.

The commemorative photos of Hezbollane for the six men use the Mujahid label, which means “fighter”. Higher figures, on the contrary, are called “kaid”, which means “commander” – and we did not find such labels used by the group to describe the killed.

We asked IDF if the six Hezbollah fighters we identified were the planned goal goals. It did not answer this question.

One of the Hezbollah fighters we identified was Batul’s husband, Mohammed Fares. Batul told us that her husband, like many other men in southern Lebanon, was a reservist for the group, but she added that he had never received a pay from Hezbollah, had no official title or participated in battles.

Israel sees Hezbollane as one of its main threats and the group is defined as a terrorist organization by Israel, many Western governments and Arab Gulf countries.

But along with his large, well -armed military wing, Hezbollah is also an influential political party occupying seats in the Lebanese Parliament. In many parts of the country, it is woven into social tissue, providing a network of social services.

In response to our investigation, the IDF said: “IDF strikes for military purposes are subject to the relevant provisions of international law, including taking possible precautions, and are carried out after assessing that the expected concomitant damage and civilian victims are not excessive in connection with the military advantage expected by the impact. “

He had also told the BBC that he had implemented “evacuation procedures” about the strike against Ain El Delb, but everyone we talked to said they had not received a warning.

UN experts expressed concern about proportionality and the need for Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in densely populated areas in Lebanon.

This model of targeting entire buildings – leading to significant civilian casualties – is a recurring characteristic of Israel’s last conflict with Hezbollah, which began when the group escalated rocket attacks in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Between October 2023 and November 2024, the Lebanese authorities say more than 3960 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces, many of whom civilians. During the same period of time, the Israeli authorities claim that at least 47 civilians were killed by Hezbollah missiles fired by southern Lebanon. At least 80 Israeli soldiers were also killed in battles in southern Lebanon or as a result of rocket attacks against northern Israel.

Ain El Delb’s missile strike has been the deadliest Israeli attack on a building in Lebanon for at least 18 years.

The village remains obsessed with its impact. When we visited, more than a month after the strike, the father continued to visit the site every day, hoping to get news about his 11-year-old son, whose body has not yet been found.

Ashraf Ramadan also returns to sift the ruins, looking for what left of the memories his family created in the two decades that lived there.

He shows me the door to his wardrobe, still decorated with photos of football players and pop stars he once admired. He then removes a teddy bear from the debris and tells me that he has always been on his bed.

“Nothing I find here will compensate the people we lost,” he says.

Additional Reporting by Scarlett Barter and Jake Thaci