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Today's Paper | May 15, 2026

Published 28 Oct, 2024 08:28am

Survivor recounts Israeli attack that killed 73 people in Lebanon

Hecham Al-Baba was visiting his sister at her home in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon in late September when the Israeli strike hit, Al Jazeera reports.

The entire six-storey residential building, with 17 apartments full of families, collapsed, tipping over down a hillside, killing more than 70 people.

At the bottom of the building’s wreckage, al-Baba was trapped in pitch-black darkness for four hours, squeezed with his legs bent under him.

He knew his sister’s family was dead from the constant, unanswered ringing of their phones.

“No one said a word. I didn’t hear a movement,” al-Baba told the AP news agency, as he recalled how finally he heard movement and the sound of a rescuer calling out.

Looking back now, Al-Baba fears “there will be no peace” in Lebanon and Gaza.

“No one will bring me justice. No one,” he said.

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