A Lebanese mother vows to pursue international justice after an Israeli raid killed her husband and three children, despite a ceasefire being in place.
BEIRUT: A Lebanese mother has pledged to fight for international justice after an Israeli strike killed her husband and three children in southern Lebanon.
Amani Bazzi lost her husband Chadi Charara and children Celine, 10, and twins Hadi and Cylan during what was supposed to be a family outing on September 21.
The 33-year-old mother and her surviving daughter Aseel, 13, are now determined to seek accountability through global courts despite their devastating injuries.
“Our whole life was our kids. We did everything together,” said Bazzi from her Beirut hospital bed where Aseel is being treated for extensive wounds.
“Why should they have been part of this horrific scene? Why did this happen to us?”
Aseel, speaking softly but with determination despite her injuries, vowed to continue the fight for justice.
“When I get out and stand on my feet, the first thing I want to do is get justice for them,” she said.
“They were wronged, they were innocent. This shouldn’t have happened to them.”
The family was returning from lunch with Bazzi’s parents in Bint Jbeil when the strike hit their vehicle.
They had stopped to greet a relative on a motorbike, who was also killed in the attack.
The Israeli military acknowledged that “several uninvolved civilians were killed” in the raid that targeted what it called a Hezbollah operative.
It expressed regret for “any harm to uninvolved individuals” and said the incident was under review.
UN special rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz called the attack “a targeted killing of unarmed civilians” that violated international law.
He stated that such violations “amount in this case to arbitrary killings… and a war crime.”
According to Lebanese health ministry figures, approximately 340 people have been killed and almost 1,000 wounded since the November 27 ceasefire took effect.
The UN rights office has verified that at least 127 of those killed were civilians.
Bazzi attended her family’s funeral on a stretcher, her hospital armband still visible on her wrist.
The coffins were draped in the Lebanese flag rather than Hezbollah’s yellow standard typically seen at the group’s funerals.
Home videos show the bright-eyed twins laughing and playing together, and daughter Celine singing.
“Celine was like a second mother to the twins,” Bazzi recalled.
“Now for sure she’s their mother in heaven.”
This is the second tragedy to strike Bazzi’s family, following the destruction of their Tyre home in an Israeli raid last year.
“First we lost our home… then we lost our whole family,” she said, wearing a badge showing her husband and slain children.
