Haje Nahed Hijazi was about to fall asleep in Sydney on October 14, when her daughter burst into her room announcing the Lebanese home their family was taking refuge in had been hit by an Israeli air strike.
“I jumped out of bed, and I grabbed my phone to call someone, and then I dropped it,” she said.
“I wanted to [take] two minutes, just not knowing what’s happened.”
It wouldn’t be until the next morning that the 43-year-old from Bexley in Sydney’s south and her 22-year-old daughter Zainab Mawassi learnt that 19 members of their family had been killed.
The oldest victim was Zainab’s 95-year-old great-grandmother, Haje Sareye Hijazi, and the youngest was her four-month-old infant cousin Elaine.
Zainab said she was still processing what happened, but she can feel sadness, grief and anger welling up inside of her.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be the same again, and we’ll never get over it,” Haje Nahed, a high school maths and science teacher, said.
The deadly strike in Aitou is being reviewed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Farming village ‘idyllic’ and ‘happy’
The women’s family have been displaced from Aitaroun in southern Lebanon for nearly a year, following the breakout of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire since the Israel-Gaza war erupted after Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Hezbollah fired rockets into Shebaa Farms a day later on October 8, a contested border territory with Israel.
At the time Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was recently assassinated, said it opened that front in solidarity and support of Gaza.
The Muslim-majority village is on the Lebanese-Israeli border and had been occupied by Israel in previous wars.
Haje Nahed and Zainab lived in Aitaroun for nearly a decade and only came back to Australia for Zainab’s education in 2020.
Like many in the southern Lebanese village of Aitaroun, the Hijazis are primarily tobacco farmers.
Haje Nahed described life there as “idyllic”.
They lived in a village where people finished their farm work in the morning and rested before visiting each other in the afternoon to “have coffee, joke around and have fun”.
For Zainab, growing up in Aitaroun represented family.
“My cousins taught me so much Arabic, so much swear words in Arabic … they taught us everything we needed to know about living in Lebanon,” she said.
Shortly after the fighting began late last year their wider family moved to nearby Srifa, another southern Lebanese village only 25 minutes away by car but further north from the border.
“They were actually quite happy there. They were just far away from home,” Haje Nehad said.
But when Israel started a ground invasion of southern Lebanon at the beginning of the month, their extended family found themselves in danger again.
Haje Nahed was on the phone with her relatives as they were making their way further north away from the fighting.
“They were telling us about how the bombs were just falling around them and they said, ‘We’re seeing things no-one wants to see’.”
‘They don’t see us as humans’
Haje Nahed’s brother in Australia managed to organise a place for the family to stay in the Christian-majority village of Aitou in northern Lebanon.
“They were there for two weeks. All the communication with them is they were very happy. They were comfortable,” Haje Nahed said.
But on October 14, an Israeli air strike flattened the residential building the Hijazi family were staying in.
Most were killed instantly and their bodies retrieved from under the rubble.
Zainab’s great uncle Hassan lost his wife Haje Sekne Hijazi, 55, and his three children Muhammad, 25, Ali, 30, and Abbas, 20, in the air strike.
Haje Nahed said her uncle Hassan was “pretending to be strong” whenever she talked to him, but his only surviving daughter told her that he struggled behind closed doors.
“When he’s alone at night, he’s screaming and shouting all his family members’ names,” she said.
Ali Hassan Hijazi, 30, and his mother Sekne Hijazi, 55. Supplied
Abbas Hijazi, 20. Supplied
Muhammad Hijazi, 25. Supplied
Haje Nahed’s first cousin Jenan Hussein Hijazi happened to be outside the building when it was hit. She survived with some injuries, but her 11-month-old baby girl Rukaya was killed.
The infant’s body was found the next day, several metres away from the building, blown away by the force of the explosion.
Her mother told Zainab: “It’s OK, she’s with her grandfather and grandmother in heaven.”
But the 22-year-old said Jenan was still in shock and only putting on a brave face after losing her only daughter.
She is also mourning the loss of both of her parents Haj Hussein and Haje Sana, her five siblings Ali, Fouad, Abbas, Alaa and her great-grandmother in the same moment.
Jenan’s brother Ali was killed along with his wife Jenna and their four-month-old infant baby girl Elaine.
Rukaya Issa, 11 months. Supplied
Fouad Hijazi, 26. Supplied
Alaa Hijazi, 20. Supplied
Hezbollah, which operates in Lebanon as both a political party and militant group, and Israel have been trading fire since the Israel-Gaza war erupted after October 7 last year.
The Australian government classifies Hezbollah as terrorist organisation.
The IDF said the incident was being examined.
“The IDF struck a target belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in northern Lebanon,” it said in a statement on October 15.
“The claim that Lebanese civilians were killed as a result of the strike is under review.”
Zainab said she had no faith in the review process.
“They want to convince us that the issue is with Hezbollah and not with the Lebanese people … but then, why are you killing Lebanese people that have nothing to do with Hezbollah?
“It’s all just talk … they’ve been killing civilians in Lebanon since October of last year,” Zainab said.
“They don’t see us as humans.”
Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the organisation had “real concerns with respect to international humanitarian law” about the air strike on Aitou and called for a “thorough investigation”.
Uncertain future
Haje Nahed said she wanted to move her family’s remains to Aitaroun from the north, where they’re currently buried.
“They hated going out of the village. They actually didn’t like it. They loved the village and staying in the village,” she said.
Haje Nahed hopes to bring some of her surviving family members to safety in Australia soon.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said the federal government had focused its efforts on getting Australian citizens and permanent residents out of Lebanon.
It has not indicated if any special humanitarian visa for Lebanese citizens was in the works.
“It’s very disappointing, because it just shows that the government really doesn’t care. They don’t care about us,” Haje Nahed said.
“I feel like all they care about is making America and Israel happy and I don’t get it. I don’t get what our country gets out of it.”