Nawal al-Maghafi, a senior international investigations correspondent for BBC World Service, reported on the tragic events involving Ashraf and Julia Ramadan during the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah. Ashraf had convinced his sister Julia to seek refuge in their family apartment, believing it was a safe haven from IDF strikes.
Julia, terrified by the conflict and haunted by a nightmare of her home being bombed, joined her brother in Ain El Delb, a quiet village in southern Lebanon. Unfortunately, their family’s apartment building was targeted in a deadly Israeli attack on September 29, resulting in the collapse of the six-story structure and the tragic loss of 73 lives.
While the IDF claimed the building was a Hezbollah “terrorist command center” and that the majority of those killed were “terror operatives,” a BBC investigation revealed that only six of the identified victims had ties to Hezbollah’s military wing. The remaining 62 were civilians, including children and infants.
Ashraf and Julia’s story ended in tragedy, with Julia suffocating under the rubble and Ashraf losing his mother in the attack. The ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hezbollah aimed to end the conflict, but the devastating consequences of the deadliest Israeli attack on Lebanon in years continue to impact the lives of survivors and families who lost loved ones.
The heartbreaking accounts of individuals like Batoul, who lost her husband and daughter in the attack, and Hisham, who lost four family members, shed light on the human cost of conflict and the complexities of the situation in Lebanon. The investigation into the targeting of the apartment building raises questions about the justification for the strike and the impact on innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.