With the death toll rising and rescuers still searching for people beneath the rubble, families were keeping a desperate watch over the site of an Israeli strike in Lebanon.
After a nightlong vigil, with an untold number of hours of waiting still ahead, Najwa Qubaisi pushed away every relative who tried to coax her from the concrete skeleton of the building that had once been home to her grandson and his family.
“How can I leave? I can’t,” she said, her eyes puffy from hours of crying. “I want to stay until I get some kind of news.”
A day after an Israeli strike razed two buildings in an attack that killed members of its regional foe, Hezbollah, in suburban Beirut, the relatives of those who lived there were anxiously waiting on Saturday to learn the fate of dozens of loved ones still unaccounted for.
Desperate, dazed-looking family members huddled in crowds just beyond the remains of sidewalks that had been ripped away and torn apart by the force of the blast. The occasional screeches of ambulance sirens were audible as rescuers brought in heavy equipment to remove tons of concrete in search of the missing.
The blasts on Friday were not only a painful military blow to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group that lost two top commanders and over a dozen members in what Israel described as a strike on a meeting held after a string of Israeli attacks this past week. They were also devastating to the largely Shiite Muslim community of Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long held sway.
The toll of the blast has risen to 37, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, with three children among the dead. And sorrow and rage emanated from those still awaiting news.
