Arthur Sarradin
special envoy to southern Lebanon
Published on November 20, 2024 at 12:31 p.m. / Modified on November 20, 2024 at 12:33.
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In Lebanon, where more than 3,300 people have been killed since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalated, morgues and mass graves are overloaded and funerals are often impossible.
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In southern Lebanon, some families even accuse Israeli soldiers of desecrating cemeteries on the border.
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To overcome the ordeal of these desecrated deaths, the Lebanese Shiites cling to the belief according to which the martyr, “chosen by God”, does not always require strict respect for the funeral rite.
“We have ten minutes, then they will shoot us.” Slamming his car door, Mohammad hurries down an alley in Khodor, his village in the eastern Bekaa plain. The sixty-year-old has just left the hospital, a bandage tight around his head and still looking confused. Around him, a bumpy relief where everything has been devastated. This is the first time, at the beginning of November, that he has set foot here again since the destruction the day before of the family home, located opposite his poultry store, during an Israeli army raid. . A piece of wall dominates the immense crater in which dozens of children’s colorful clothes are intermingled. “Do you see any weapons here? Mohammad gets angry. There was nothing! We are civilians.” The youngest victim, Arij, was 8 years old. In total, four children and two adults were killed here, including Mohammad’s daughter Sawsan, who was pregnant.
Already five minutes, time is slipping dangerously. Mohammad hurries towards a patch of freshly beaten earth below. Facing the hastily thrown bouquets of marigolds, six concrete blocks are coldly erected. Makeshift steles, without name or date. The sight of them brings a sob from Mohammad, which he tries to contain by running out of breath. “We are told that it is a just war, to free us… Do they seem free here?” says the poultryman. At the funeral two hours earlier, no imam was able to officiate. Mohammad was not able to invite his loved ones to the funeral or receive their condolences. Lebanese civil defense allowed only one family member to accompany a paramedic for the burial.
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