Thirteen people were killed Tuesday evening in Ghaziyeh, Lebanon, while attending the mass funeral of the fifteen Lebanese people killed just the day before.
Local sources reported that 1500 people were attending the funeral procession, praying and mourning, accompanying the fifteen coffins in a procession to the town’s cemetery, when the missiles hit.
The first missile dropped by Israeli warplanes hit a building quite near the procession, then, about thirty minutes later, four more missiles were dropped among the mourners, killing 13 and wounding 18, according to local hospitals and Mayor Mohammed Ghaddar.
An Associated Press report said that Ghaziyeh has been targeted by Israeli forces several times, but the attacks Monday and Tuesday were the heaviest, adding that the town is currently overflowing with displaced people, who have swelled its population to 23,000.
Witnesses said the planes may have been targetting the home of Sheik Mustafa Khalifeh, a cleric linked to Hezbollah. Most people with Hezbollah links left their homes at the beginning of the now four-week-long conflict.
And Israeli officials declared a no-drive zone in the entire region south of Lebanon’s Litani River — 20 miles from the border — warning residents that any vehicle on the roads would be destroyed on the assumption it was carrying Hezbollah rockets or supplies. The order left the streets of the region’s main city, Tyre, empty, and civilians in villages across the south unable to flee.
Many humanitarian organizations have also reported being targetted, and unable to get needed food and water to civilians who have been without basic necessities for several weeks.
