Several funeral ceremonies were held on Friday as Southern Lebanese buried at least 250 people killed by Israeli air strikes during its war with Hezbollah.
"This is the day to bury our dead," said Shiite cleric Sheikh Shoue Qatoon. "It was decided that we would schedule the funerals so that we could all attend them all."
A caravan of cars made its way from one service to the next.
During the war, bodies were taken to the Tyre morgue and later buried in a shallow mass grave when refrigerated trucks holding the corpses became too crowded. On Friday, the bodies were exhumed and taken to the home villages for burial. The coffins were marked with the names of the dead.
Qana, about 10 kilometers southeast of the port city of Tyre, held the most elaborate of several funerals in the south after residents decided it was finally safe and hospital morgues made sure all bodies could be claimed
Around 5,000 mourners thronged the funeral procession in the village of Qana, where the 29 victims of rhe air strike, more than half of them children, were buried in individual graves one beside the other.
Women in black robes held pictures of the dead and threw rice and rose petals on the plywood caskets.. Twenty-six coffins were draped in the Lebanese flag and three in the yellow Hizbullah flag.
Women broke into piercing screams as the 29 coffins were carried shoulder-high to the grave site, a few hundred meters from the two-story home blasted by an Israeli missile on July 30. World outrage caused Israel to announce a 48-hour halt in aerial attacks while it investigated the assault after Lebanese authorities initially said 56 people were killed.
Hezbullah flags were planted in the mound of earth scooped from the graves. Scores of cars paraded through Qana waving large Hizbullah flags. Banners stretched across the main street read in English: "The great Hezbollah has defeated the murderers." Arabic language banners said civilian deaths in Qana "woke up the world."
In the village of Srifa, 19 kilometers east of Tyre, more than 20 people were also buried in a mass grave Friday.(AP)
In the nearby village of Sreifa, 30 people were buried, among at least 250 dead from 40 southern villages and towns finally laid to rest five days into a truce.
At least 1,181 people in and 157 Israelis were killed in the conflict.
