Mass graves in Tyre temporarily hold the bodies of around 200 civilians, emergency workers, soldiers, and Hezbollah fighters awaiting proper burial in their southern villages [Alex Martin Astley]
On a patch of wasteland in Tyre, a bulldozer stands silently beside a shallow trench, nearly full, with a plywood coffin protruding from its newest section, ready to be extended as more bodies arrive.
Visitors come at intervals, scrambling over the fresh earth until they find the mound that covers their spouse, their relative, or their friend. But the graves are a mess, so they mark the spot vaguely with a sprig of bougainvillaea, which flowers the year round in southern Lebanon.
Almost all of those buried here were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the villages surrounding Tyre. Local civil defence teams continued to bring the victims here throughout Israel’s two-month bombing campaign which pummelled swathes of southern Lebanon.
“We have four [civil defence] martyrs in the mass grave and another in the church in Tyre. We’re working to try return them to their families,” said Mousa Nasrallah, one of the civil defence members covering part of the south.
“The war made the situation difficult, you cannot travel easily, and the number of casualties rises quickly, so we put people in a mass grave. And every day we find more martyrs under the rubble,” he said.
But this mass grave is only temporary. The bodies of approximately 200 civilians, emergency workers, soldiers, and Hezbollah fighters will wait here until they can be taken to their villages in the south for proper burial.
It is impossible to do so now. The Israeli military has forbidden access to 64 villages in a strip along the southern border still under its control, and in some cases has opened fire on those entering them, despite the current ceasefire.
Israel has also ordered a curfew for the entire region south of the Litani River, which extends some 30 kilometres (19 miles) into Lebanon, further restricting the freedom of movement for residents in the south.
But the ceasefire, which came into effect on Wednesday, has made most of the towns and villages of the south accessible again. The graves in Tyre have had their first visitors in two months.
‘His face was still there, but his body was in pieces’Â
Zeinab treads back and forth, struggling to find where her husband is buried. Her three teenage sons join her in the search, holding a portrait of their father. He was a Hezbollah fighter, killed in a strike in the southern town of Qana over a month ago.
“My Husband was in the resistance for over 30 years, so it was natural that his life ended this way. Luckily, when he was found we were able to recognise him. His face was still there, but his body was in pieces,” Zeinab, who preferred to give only her first name, said.
“Of course, this was hard for us because he was my life partner. But there are no wars without sacrifices … There is a cause that we are fighting for, and we must pay the price for what we believe in, even if it is someone dear to you.”
For the residents of Tyre, it will seem like history is repeating itself. In July 2006, the same patch of wasteland was used as a mass grave for over 100 people, after the local hospital ran out of room to store the victims of that other war with Israel.
This conflict has been far more deadly, killing 3,961 people, triple the number of casualties compared to 2006. Among the dead are 736 women, 248 children, and 222 emergency workers, according to the latest figures from Lebanon’s health ministry.
A man approaches the half-covered coffin, squats down and rests his fingers on the lid. Hamad Soor has come to visit his friend, Mustafa, 35, a farmer who was killed three weeks ago in an airstrike in the village of Ramadiya.
“We were friends since we were small children … We are farmers, tobacco and olives mostly. But Israel doesn’t differentiate between farmers and fighters,” Hamad said.
A grim aftermathÂ
At another mound of earth, a father and his young daughter look on. This one covers a soldier of the Lebanese army, one of over 40 killed in this war, even as the army has stayed out of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and is expected to provide security in the south as part of the ceasefire agreement.
At the public hospital in Hasbaya, near the eastern part of the Lebanon-Israel border, staff are dealing with a new set of responsibilities.
As one of the only hospitals in the south to remain open during the two months of intense conflict, they took in at least 300 cases, 70 of which were fatal.
Since the ceasefire, staff have been tasked with identifying the bodies that are only now being pulled out of the rubble.
“We cannot identify some cases, so we take DNA tests and send them to the government hospital in Beirut. But some casualties died over 20 days ago … so we just received a skeleton in some cases,” said Samer Zweihed, director of nursing at the Hasbaya Governmental Hospital.
Samer received five such cases on Friday alone, from the village of Kfar Hamam, and says 15 more bodies are waiting to be removed there.
The exact number of people still missing under the rubble in Lebanon is unclear. Still, in dozens of villages across the southern region and parts of the eastern Bekaa Valley, the sudden respite from the bombing campaign has allowed people to start searching for the first time in two months.
But it will be another two months yet, if the ceasefire brings an end to the war before the dead waiting in Tyre can go back home.
