Funerals have been held overnight for an Australian-Lebanese man, his Lebanese wife and his brother after the trio were killed in an air strike in southern Lebanon.
The Associated Press news agency filed pictures from the town of Bint Jbeil showing the funeral with coffins draped in Hezbollah flags.
Reuters cited security and other sources on the ground in Lebanon as saying all three had been killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a home in al-Dawra neighbourhood.
The dead have been identified by Middle Eastern media as Australian-Lebanese civilian Ibrahim Bazzi, his wife Shorouq Hammoud, a Lebanese citizen, and his brother Ali Bazzi, a Hezbollah fighter.
“They were in their homes,” a medic who works with the civil defence in south Lebanon told the National, the English-language United Arab Emirates-based news outlet.
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He said there were no signs of fighting nearby before the strike and that Hammoud had been recovered first from the debris.
“When they found her she was alive but she died shortly after,” he told the National. This could not be independently confirmed.
Lebanon’s National News Agency also reported the deaths, saying the home belonged to the Bazzi family.
Hezbollah, which has widespread support in the area, later announced that Ali Bazzi had been one of the Shi’ite Muslim group’s fighters. In a post mourning his death on its website it said he “rose as a martyr on the road to Jerusalem”.
As an ally of the Palestinian Islamist faction Hamas, Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern frontier since the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza began on 7 October.
Asked about the airstrike, the Israeli military said one of its jets had hit a Hezbollah military site overnight in Lebanon, Reuters said.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Wednesday said it was aware of reports that an Australian had been killed in an airstrike in Lebanon and was seeking confirmation.
Hammoud had been granted an Australian visa. She and her husband, who have been married for three years, planned to travel soon to Sydney, Nine News reported.
Ibrahim Bazzi is believed to have moved to Australia in 2020-21.
Australia’s Smartraveller website maintains a “do not travel” warning for Lebanon citing the possibility of increased armed conflict, as well as daily military action in the country’s south including airstrikes.
with Reuters
2023-12-27 16:13:18
Link from www.theguardian.com
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