Southern Lebanon buries child, father killed by Israeli drone

Lebanon – (Web Desk) – On Tuesday, mourners in southern Lebanon laid to rest a father and his young son who were killed in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a Hezbollah member.

Hassan Jaber, a police officer, and his three-year-old son, Ali, were walking when a car struck by the drone hit them in the town center of Yanouh, relatives said.

The car’s driver, Ahmad Salami, an artillery official with the Lebanese militant group, was also killed.

The Israeli military said it was aware of reports that civilians had been harmed and that the incident is under review. They added that they try to avoid civilian casualties.

The three were buried together in the village on Tuesday. A relative of the father said the strike occurred in a busy area near coffee shops, shops, a religious hall, the municipal building, and a civil defense center.

The father and son had been heading to a bakery to watch how traditional Lebanese flatbread, manakish, is made, standing just a few meters from the car when it was hit.

“It is not new for Israel to carry out such actions,” the cousin said. “They aimed at a car but struck the middle of this crowded area.”

Jaber said the little boy, Ali, had not yet entered school but “showed signs of unusual intelligence.”
“What did this innocent child do wrong, this angel?” asked Ghazaleh Haider, the wife of the boy’s uncle. “Was he a fighter or a jihadi?”
Attendees at the funeral carried photos of Ali, a striking child with large green eyes and blond hair.

Some also carried flags of Hezbollah or Amal, a Shiite party that is allied with but also sometimes a rival of Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, of which the child’s father was a member, said in a statement that the 37-year-old father of three had joined in 2013 and reached the rank of first sergeant.
The strike came as Israel has stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon.

The night before the strike in Yanouh, Israeli forces launched a rare ground raid in the Lebanese village of Hebbarieh, several kilometers (miles) from the border, in which they seized a local official with the Sunni Islamist group Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group in English.

The group is allied with Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

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The low-level conflict between Lebanon and Israel escalated into full-scale war in September 2024, later reined in but not fully stopped by a US-brokered ceasefire two months later.
Since then, Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild and has carried out near-daily strikes in Lebanon that it says target Hezbollah militants and facilities.
Israeli forces also continue to occupy five hilltop points on the Lebanese side of the border. Hezbollah has claimed one strike against Israel since the ceasefire.