Lebanese schoolchildren had a narrow escape Thursday when a drone strike killed a Hezbollah fighter in the car ahead, blowing out the windscreen of their minibus and wounding three pupils.
The three children were hospitalized with cuts from flying glass after the attack.
“At first, we didn’t understand what was happening, and there was panic among the children,” said Ahmad Qubaisi, 57, who was driving the bus with 18 children on board.
“Suddenly, a strike hit the car in front of us” near the town of Nabatiyeh, about 13 kilometers from the Israeli border, he said.
“The bus’s windshield shattered… I backed up and that’s when the second strike hit the car in front of us,” Qubaisi added.
At the site of Thursday’s strike, an AFP photographer saw the charred car and blood stains on the road.
One of the children, 11-year-old Mohammad Nasser, was lying on a bed in the Nabatiyeh government hospital, a bandage on his bruised forehead.
“The glass shattered… and the car in front of us was burning,” the boy recalled. Fearing more strikes, he said, “We put our schoolbags on our heads.”
Standing beside him, his aunt showed AFP his blood-stained school uniform.
The boy’s father, Ali Nasser, recounted, “I was working in my field when my brother-in-law called telling me my son had been injured.” “Fortunately, his injuries are not serious,” he added.
In the more than seven months since the October 7 attack on southern Israel, at least 429 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly militants but also 82 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Mahmoud Zayyat / AFP
