World News

It took Israel only 10 minutes to carry out one of the worst mass-killings in Lebanon since the end of the country’s civil war in 1990.

Omar Rakha heard the war planes but did not feel the explosions; it was only when he woke up face down on the street, bleeding, that he understood what had happened: the building next to his in the Barbour neighbourhood of central Beirut had been destroyed by two Israeli bombs. He then ran through the flaming wreckage to find his sister, screaming.

Shaden Fakih, a 24-year-old calisthenics trainer, also ran towards the impact site; his friend Mahmoud was inside the struck building. He could only get so close; the multistorey building was a pile of burning rubble. Fakih began to pull people out of the apartments in front of the site, carrying in his arms an old woman who could not walk. There was no sign of Mahmoud and the neighbourhood – once thought to be safe from Israeli bombs – felt like a war zone.

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was in the emergency room when the casualties began to arrive. Among the wounded were children pulled from under the rubble; many arrived alone, without parents, their identities unknown. “The youngest was an 11-month-old. I had to operate on him just to relieve some pressure in the head,” said Abu-Sittah, who works as a surgeon at the American University of Beirut Medical College (AUBMC).