When Shaheen Jarkas fled Syria’s war for Lebanon, he hoped his family would be safe. Instead, a strike blamed on Israel killed his two young children, the latest casualties of months of cross-border violence, AFP reports.

“Like every day… the children were spending their day playing,” said Jarkas, 55, a farm worker originally from north Syria’s Afrin area but now living in the southern border village of Umm Toot.

“I heard the sound of a strike” and ran towards it, he said.

Jarkas said he found his children, Jean, 10, and Mohammed, seven, “drowning in blood”.

Lebanese official media said separate Israeli strikes on Tuesday in south Lebanon, including on Umm Toot, killed five Syrians, three of them children, with Hezbollah announcing rocket fire at Israel in retaliation.