Lebanese Journalist Accuses Israel of Killing his Sister and her 3 Granddaughters in Drone Attack
(AWP) - Lebanese journalist Samir Ayoub on Monday accused Israel of deliberately killing his sister and her three granddaughters in a drone attack that bombed a car they were travelling in on a road in southern Lebanon.
At the site of the attack, Ayoub stood in front of the wreckage of the car and said, “This was premeditated murder. They deliberately killed children. They watched them from the drone that sees everything on the ground.”
Ayoub said, “Three schoolgirls were preparing their textbooks to go back to school and resume their academic year after the incidents here on the border strip. They had gathered all their books and things. Unfortunately, this criminal missile and the commander who ordered its launch sent the children to heaven before they made it to school.”
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported that a Lebanese woman and her three granddaughters were killed after an Israeli drone fired a rocket on the car they were travelling in on the road between Aiynata and Aitaroun villages in southern Lebanon.
The NNA said, “Two vehicles were en route behind each other. The first was driven by journalist Samir Ayoub, and behind him was a car driven by his niece, accompanied by her mother and her three children when they were subjected to a raid from an enemy drone and the second car was directly hit and burst into flames.”
It reported that the attack resulted in the death of the journalist’s sister and her three granddaughters aged 10, 12 and 14 years old, and injured their mother and the journalist himself.
The Israeli army said it had attacked a car that was identified as a “suspicious vehicle carrying a number of terrorists.”
The Times of Israel newspaper quoted the army saying that it is investigating “allegations that uninvolved civilians were inside the car and the incident is under review.”
Najib Mikati, the prime minister of the Lebanese caretaker cabinet, condemned the “crime,” describing it as “a new stain on the global conscience that condones what the Israeli occupation is doing in southern Lebanon and Gaza.”
He said in a statement, “This heinous crime will not go unnoticed and will be followed up by the government through international communications and also by submitting an urgent complaint against the Israeli enemy to the UN Security Council.”
He called on the decision-making countries in the UN Security Council to take action “to curb the aggression and save what remains of humanity and justice so that these complaints do not remain mere ink on paper.”