Israeli strikes on Lebanon kill civilians and threaten safe havens for the displaced

The U.S. said Tuesday it did not approve of Israel’s bombing campaign in Beirut over the last several weeks that has led to major civilian casualties. Far from Beirut in northern Lebanon, a deadly Israeli airstrike targeted one Hezbollah member but killed nearly two dozen people. Leila Molana-Allen reports. A warning, images in this story may disturb some viewers.

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Geoff Bennett: I’m going to shift our focus now to Lebanon, where Israel and Iran’s strongest proxy militia, Hezbollah, are fighting what looks more and more like its own war.

The U.S. today said it did not approve of Israel’s bombing campaign in Beirut over the last several weeks that have led to major civilian casualties.

Far from Beirut, in Northern Lebanon, our Leila Molana-Allen reports now on the aftermath of a deadly Israeli airstrike that targeted one known Hezbollah member, but also killed nearly two dozen other people.

And a warning: Images in this story are disturbing.

Leila Molana-Allen: Lebanon’s war have now climbed its famed mountains, scattered across a rolling hill of olive groves as far as the eye can see, the charred aftermath of an enormous bomb.

For nearly 24 hours, paramedics and rescue workers dug through the ruins of this home hit by an Israeli airstrike yesterday in the northern Lebanese Maronite Catholic village of Aito. First, they were looking for bodies. Then, they searched for pieces of them. Overturned cars surrounding the house burned as they tried to save who they could.

The weapons being used in these strikes are so powerful that they pulverize not just buildings, but the human bodies inside. These paramedics are digging through the rubble, taking out human body parts. We just saw a charred human foot taken out and placed alone into a body bag.

This is all their relatives have left to bury. But there aren’t many members of the family left; 23 of the 29 people who sought refuge here were killed. The other six are in hospital in critical condition, nearly an entire family line wiped out in a moment. They fled here after their Shia village in the south of Lebanon was relentlessly bombarded.

With many thousands of Lebanese now sleeping on the streets, they were lucky to have a friend in the north who would take them in. But as more displaced Shia come under fire in areas they fled to, that welcome is turning to fear and threatening to open old sectarian wounds many here hoped had healed.

Elie Alwan, Owner of Destroyed House (through interpreter): I welcomed refugees from the south into my home. I have been friends with this family for almost 15 years.

Leila Molana-Allen: The Hijazi (ph) family felt safe here and began to set up a new, if temporary, home. The signs of that life are littered everywhere in the rubble, blankets and slippers, kitchen utensils, Tupperwares of a leftover home-cooked meal.

Elie Alwan (through interpreter): Suddenly, a man I didn’t know came to offer the family’s help and money. The situation was peaceful here until that man Israel targeted came, knowing that he was putting those people in danger.

Leila Molana-Allen: That man, reportedly a low-level Hezbollah member, was the target of the IDF’s attack. As happens every day here now, dozens of civilians died alongside him. Two of them were less than a-year-old.

As the strikes here become more and more widespread in areas that didn’t receive any kind of evacuation notice, people are increasingly afraid that anywhere could be next. This is a very small, peaceful Christian village in the north of Lebanon surrounded by olive trees. And what happened yesterday came out of the blue for everyone living here.

Neighbor Dany’s restful mountain idyll has been shattered. The force of the explosion was so great, three of the bodies were propelled through the air into his front garden.

Dany Alwan, Lebanon Resident (through interpreter): There were dead bodies everywhere.A lot of people died. Smoke was all over the place. It was a terrible scene.

Leila Molana-Allen: Through the night and on into today, rescue workers searched for survivors and then bodies. One of the family’s two babies was missing.

Dany Alwan (through interpreter): The dead body they just pulled out of that car belongs to a baby. He’s only a few months old. They couldn’t find him until now. They found him in the trunk.

Leila Molana-Allen: Eventually, they found his small, lifeless body inside a mangled nearby car. The blast had thrown him out of the house and into the wreckage. Lebanese increasingly feel nowhere is safe here.

But as Israeli strikes move further into these once secure areas, locals who’ve opened their homes and their hearts to the more than 1.2 million displaced now fear they will bring the threat with them.

Dany Alwan (through interpreter): Of course, after this, I’m more cautious of welcoming refugees from the south because we lost everything and that’s a problem. We are all paying the price all over Lebanon.

Leila Molana-Allen: In spite of the danger, Elie and Dany insist they will keep doing what they can to help their fellow Lebanese.

“We are one,” they told me. As the carnage here spreads and some attempt to tear open age-old divisions, Lebanese pray they can hold their community and their country together.

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Leila Molana-Allen in Zgharta, North Lebanon.