On a quiet Sunday afternoon in southern Lebanon, tragedy struck a family returning home from lunch, casting a harsh spotlight on the simmering tensions along the border with Israel. Five people, including three young children, lost their lives in an Israeli drone strike near Bint Jbeil on September 21, 2025, an incident that has ignited grief, outrage, and international debate over the ongoing violence in the region.
According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency and reporting from the Associated Press, the victims were Shadi Charara, a car dealer, his 18-month-old twins Hadi and Silan, his 8-year-old daughter Celine, and a motorcyclist identified as Mohammed Majed Mroue. Charara’s wife, Amina Bazzi, and their eldest daughter Asil survived the strike but were left seriously wounded and hospitalized. The family had just left a meal at Bazzi’s father’s house, believing themselves safe because of their lack of political or militant ties. “We’re regular citizens and we don’t belong to any group,” Bazzi’s father, Sam Bazzi, told the Associated Press. “And so we thought we had nothing to do with it and we were just living normally, coming and going.”
The attack, which targeted a motorcycle as it passed Charara’s car, was one of several recent Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, despite a US-brokered ceasefire that was supposed to halt hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in November 2024. The Israeli military later stated that it had targeted a Hezbollah militant operating within a civilian area, acknowledging civilian deaths and promising to review the incident. “The terrorist operated in a civilian population area,” the military said, echoing a justification it has given for past attacks that have resulted in civilian casualties, as reported by Al Jazeera.
But for the Charara family and the wider community of Bint Jbeil, those justifications rang hollow. The funeral, held on Tuesday, September 23, saw the coffins draped in Lebanese flags, a poignant symbol of national mourning. Unlike other funerals in the region, there were no Hezbollah banners—only the Lebanese flag, underscoring the family’s civilian status. As Amina Bazzi, her face bruised and swollen, was carried on a stretcher through the crowd, the grief was palpable. “My brother was a man who loved life and loved his family. He had nothing to do with politics. He was working to provide for his family,” said Amina Charara, Shadi’s sister, who lives in Dearborn, Michigan. “What was the fault of the children for Israel to kill them?”
The incident quickly escalated into a diplomatic flashpoint. Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker, Nabih Berri, asserted that the slain father and his children were US citizens. However, this claim was disputed by the US State Department, which stated that none of the victims were US citizens, though one had previously had an unused immigrant visa petition. Family members clarified to AP that Charara was not a US citizen, but his siblings and father are, and he had recently been approved to join them in the United States, awaiting visas at the time of his death.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who landed in New York ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, condemned the strike and called on the international community to pressure Israel to halt its attacks. “There is no peace above the blood of our children,” Aoun declared in a statement from his office, as reported by the Associated Press. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a former president of the International Court of Justice, described the strike as a “message of intimidation targeting our people returning to their villages in the south.” Salam further urged the countries sponsoring the ceasefire agreement to “exert maximum pressure on Israel to immediately halt its attacks, withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories, and release prisoners,” in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
President Aoun met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Beirut just days after the attack, according to Al Jazeera. During the meeting, Aoun pressed for US support in enforcing the ceasefire, supplying the Lebanese army with equipment, and facilitating a conference on Lebanon’s reconstruction. He also reiterated Lebanon’s commitment to gradually disarm Hezbollah, an issue that remains contentious both within Lebanon and among regional powers. Despite mounting pressure from Israel, the US, and Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem has refused to disarm, insisting that the “resistance” axis is not the enemy and appealing to Saudi Arabia for unity against Israel.
The European Union also weighed in, condemning the strike and calling for “full respect and implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel.” The EU emphasized that “security concerns should be addressed by making full use of the monitoring mechanism established in the framework of the ceasefire agreement.”
Despite the ceasefire, Israeli strikes have continued almost daily in southern Lebanon, with the Israeli government maintaining that it is targeting Hezbollah militants or infrastructure. The conflict’s roots stretch back to October 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border following a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel. The violence escalated into a full-blown war by September 2024, before the ceasefire was brokered two months later. Since then, while Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for only one cross-border attack, Israel insists the group is rebuilding its capabilities, justifying continued military action.
Civilians, however, continue to bear the brunt of the violence. In addition to Sunday’s deadly drone strike, the Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli forces fired from the occupied Shebaa Farms toward the outskirts of Kfarchouba on September 23, though no casualties were reported. The previous day, an Israeli drone dropped a sound bomb near civilians clearing rubble in Maroun al-Ras, a town devastated by earlier Israeli bombardments.
For families like the Chararas, the cost of the conflict is measured not just in damaged homes but in irreplaceable loss. “We always said thank God we only lost stones and not human beings,” Amina Charara reflected, recalling the property damage the family suffered in last year’s war. “The houses and stones can be rebuilt, but how can my brother return?”
As President Aoun prepared to address the United Nations, vowing to denounce Israeli attacks in both Gaza and Lebanon, the world’s attention turned once again to the fraught borderlands of southern Lebanon. The question remains whether international outcry will translate into meaningful change—or whether families like the Chararas will continue to pay the price for a conflict that shows little sign of abating.