Grief and Fury in Saksakiyeh: An 11-Year-Old Boy Buried After Israeli Air Strike

A Family Shattered in Seconds

There is no dignified way to describe the burial of a child. On Saturday, the village of Saksakiyeh in southern Lebanon bore witness to one of the conflict's most gut-wrenching scenes as 11-year-old Jawad Younes was laid to rest alongside his uncle, Ragheb Younes, 41. Both were killed when an Israeli air strike tore through the family compound shortly after 13:00 local time on Friday.

Six people died in the broader Saksakiyeh strikes that day, three of them children. Five members of the Younes family survived, though survival is a generous word when your home has been reduced to rubble and your family ripped apart.

The Human Cost in Numbers

Jawad and Ragheb are two names among a staggering toll. Since the escalation began on 2 March 2026, more than 1,100 people have been killed across Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, which puts the figure at 1,142 with over 3,300 injured. More than one million people have been displaced from their homes, a number the International Organization for Migration has tracked at over 1,049,000 registered individuals.

These are not abstract statistics. Each one represents a family like the Younes clan, gathering the pieces of a life that existed just hours before.

Journalists and Paramedics Also Targeted

The bloodshed has not been limited to civilian homes. On Saturday, three Lebanese journalists were killed in what multiple sources describe as a targeted Israeli strike on their media vehicle. Ali Shoeib of Al Manar, along with Fatima Ftouni and Mohamed Ftouni of Al Mayadeen, died when precision missiles struck their car on the Jezzine Road.

The Israeli Defence Forces confirmed the killing of Shoeib, labelling him a "terrorist" from Hezbollah's Radwan Force who was allegedly operating "under the guise of a journalist." Neither Al Manar nor Al Mayadeen accepted this characterisation, and the IDF has not publicly provided evidence to support its claim.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strike as a "brazen crime," citing the 1949 Geneva Conventions and UN Security Council Resolution 1738, which specifically calls for the protection of journalists in conflict zones. The Committee to Protect Journalists has repeatedly noted that Israel has killed media professionals while alleging militant ties, without producing credible evidence in the cases CPJ has documented.

Separately, an Israeli air strike killed five paramedics near the town of Zoutar Sharqi when warplanes hit an ambulance belonging to the Islamic Scout Association. Targeting medical personnel is prohibited under international humanitarian law, and the incident has drawn sharp criticism from Amnesty International.

A Family Picking Up the Pieces

Back in Saksakiyeh, the surviving members of the Younes family face a grim reality. Jawad's aunt Zeinab is reportedly being treated for a broken spine and a fractured leg, though independent medical confirmation of her specific injuries has not been available beyond the initial reporting.

What is beyond dispute is the scene itself: a funeral procession through narrow village streets, a community oscillating between grief and defiance, and the small, unbearable coffin of an 11-year-old boy who should have been worrying about school, not becoming a casualty statistic.

The Bigger Picture

The current escalation was triggered when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on 2 March, the first such attack since the November 2024 ceasefire. That move came amid the broader conflict between the US-Israel coalition and Iran, a regional conflagration that has turned Lebanon into a battlefield once again.

With over a million displaced, more than a thousand dead in under a month, and no ceasefire in sight, Lebanon is staring down a humanitarian catastrophe that grows worse by the day. The international community has issued statements. The bombs have continued regardless.

For the Younes family, geopolitics is now irrelevant. They buried a boy on Saturday. That is the only fact that matters to them.

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