Syrians in Lebanon Grieve Children Lost in Israeli Strike

### Syrian Refugee Family Tragedy in Lebanon

When Shaheen Jarkas fled the war in Syria for Lebanon, he hoped to find safety for his family. Tragically, an Israeli strike killed his two young children.

“Like every day… the children were spending their day playing,” recalled Jarkas, 55, a farm worker originally from Afrin in northern Syria, now residing in the southern border village of Umm Toot.

Upon hearing the sound of a strike, Jarkas ran towards it, only to find his children, Jean, 10, and Mohammed, 7, “drowning in blood.”

Lebanese official media reported that separate Israeli strikes on Tuesday in southern Lebanon, including one on Umm Toot, resulted in the deaths of five Syrians, three of them children. In retaliation, Hezbollah launched rocket fire at Israel.

Since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been exchanging fire almost daily, with Hezbollah supporting its ally Hamas in the ongoing Gaza conflict.

The Israeli military stated that its air force struck “a Hezbollah terrorist cell” in the Yarin area near Umm Toot, releasing a video of the strike.

On Wednesday, mourners gathered to pay their respects as the bodies of the children, wrapped in what appeared to be bed coverings, were laid out on stretchers. A sheikh led the funerary prayers.

Mohammed Khalil, 58, another Syrian agricultural worker in Umm Toot, initially did not know where the strike had hit. “We ran to check on the children who had been playing,” he said, his face showing the strain of grief. Among the dead was his 12-year-old son, Khalil Khalil.

In Qasimiya, Tyre district, where the bodies were taken for funerals, people wept, women screamed in grief, and some embraced to console each other.

“We came as refugees from Syria to protect our children,” Khalil said, blaming the Israeli government for their deaths.

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF called the children’s deaths “horrific.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned on Wednesday that his fighters would target new areas in Israel if more Lebanese civilians were killed in Israeli strikes.

Since October, the cross-border violence has claimed 511 lives in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also at least 104 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, 17 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed.

The ongoing violence, mainly confined to the border area, has sparked fears of a full-scale conflict between the two adversaries, who last went to war in the summer of 2006.