Wrapped in bloodied bandages, Aline Saeed, seven, barely survived the Israeli strike on her home in south Lebanon last week. She was there to bury her father as hopes of a truce spread across the region, but a new strike killed her infant sister and other relatives.
The strike on the Saeed family home in the village of Srifa took place on Wednesday, the first day of a US-Iran ceasefire that many in Lebanon hoped would apply to their country, too. Instead, Israeli strikes killed more than 350 across Lebanon and left the Saeed family with four more relatives to bury.
"They said it was a ceasefire. Like all these people, we went up to the village. We went to the casket to read the prayers and walk home... suddenly we felt like a storm was landing right on us," said Nasser Saeed, Aline's 64-year old grandfather, who also survived.
On Sunday, he joined other relatives in the southern port city of Tyre to pick up the bodies wrapped in green cloth. One of them, a fraction the size of the rest, contained his granddaughter Taleen, Aline's sister.
She had not yet turned two. With bandages to his head and right hand and scratches on his face, Saeed mourned in silence as the women around him turned their faces up to the sky and screamed in agony.
The latest war in Lebanon began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired onto Israeli positions. Israel has since escalated its air and ground campaign in the country where its operations have killed more than 2,000 people, including 165 children and nearly 250 women.
Wednesday was one of the deadliest days in Lebanon's recent history.
"This isn't humanity. This is a war crime," Saeed said at the hospital where Aline's mother, Ghinwa, was still being treated.
"Where are the human rights? If a child — a child! — is wounded in Israel, the whole world jumps up. Are we not people? Are we not humans? We're like them!" he said.
Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it was looking into the report of the Srifa strike.
Taleen was born in 2024, in the last round of fierce clashes between Hezbollah and Israel.
"She was born in the war and died in the war," said Mohammed Nazzal, Ghinwa's father.
Iran wants a ceasefire for Lebanon as part of talks with the United States, which concluded on Sunday without a breakthrough. But Israel wants to pursue talks with Lebanese officials through a separate track.
Heavy bombardment on Lebanon has continued, with nearly 100 people killed on Saturday.
Dr Abbas Attiyeh, head of emergency operations at Tyre's Jabal Amel hospital, said last week's bombardment was one of the heaviest in recent years and many of the patients arriving at his hospital were children.
"The challenges we're facing now are the numbers of wounded that come at the same time, within the same 30 minutes or hour," Attiyeh said.
Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV expressed his closeness to the people of Lebanon on Sunday, saying there was a "moral obligation" to protect them while calling on warring parties to seek peace.
"I am closer than ever, in these days of sorrow, fear, and unconquerable hope in God, to the beloved Lebanese people," the pope told the crowd at St Peter's Square following his Regina Coeli prayer.
"The principle of humanity, inscribed in the conscience of every person and recognised in international law, entails the moral obligation to protect the civilian population from the atrocious effects of war," he said.
On Saturday during a prayer for peace, the soft-spoken Leo made one of his most pointed criticisms yet of the war, imploring leaders to end the violence.
"Stop! It is time for peace! Sit at the table of dialogue and mediation, not at the table where rearmament is planned and deadly actions are decided!" he said.
"Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!" — AFP/Reuters
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