On Thursday, July 17, 2025, one civilian, a woman, and one Hezbollah militant were reportedly killed during an alleged Israeli airstrike in Qabrikha, Nabatieh, in the south of Lebanon.

Rashida Babari and her husband, Hezbollah militant Jaafar Ismail Hijazi (“Abu Muhammad”), died during an airstrike on their home and left behind a nine or 10-year-old daughter named Zainab, who survived the attack.

Journalist Al-Wardaniyah Baldati posted a video on his Facebook account showing an ambulance rushing through a neighbourhood with its siren activated. In the background, a child can be heard crying in desperation: “May God keep you, come and help me, my father and mother are dying, my father and mother are dying, my father and mother are dying, come and help me!” The voice is attributed to Zainab, the daughter of the deceased.

The young girl’s words have been reposted numerous times, as her pain resonated deeply with many. Family members, including Wissam Nassif Yassin, Malek Hijazi, and Mr. Hussein Ali Yassin, have turned to Facebook to express their grief over the loss, remembering how Zainab’s “voice pierced the ears of hearts and tore their strings.”

Facebook User Mhammed Munzer added in a lengthy post: “That little girl, I don’t know how her heart was when she saw her father and mother struggling in front of her, and she was helpless except to ask for help. (…) This little girl will spend the rest of her life searching with her crying exes for an explanation for what she saw.”

Zainab was described as the “southern girl who cried” by the Facebook account “Hermel City.” The photograph accompanying the post shows a young girl with shoulder-length black hair, wearing a bow in her hair, denim jeans, a white blouse, and a white handbag, smiling shyly at the camera.

The photograph of Rashida accompanying several posts shows her seated with folded hands, wearing a blue hijab with a brown paisley pattern, softly smiling past the photographer. Mhammad Munzer also described her as having a quiet demeanor.

Facebook User Abo L. Fadel Salloum and the Facebook page “Our martyrs are great ones” added a poster announcing the time and date of Jaafar and his wife’s funeral, Friday, July 07, 2025 at 5:00 pm. The poster was released by Hezbollah and referred to Jaafar as a “fighter”. Based on this information and a post by his nephew Wissam Yassine, which seems to refer to him as a “resistance fighter,” Jaafar has been classified as a militant and therefore isn’t counted among civilian casualties.

Where specified, sources described the incident either as an airstrike or a raid. Multiple sources, including local news outlet bintjbeil.org, placed the location of the incident directly in the house of the deceased family in Qabrikah, Nabatieh. The local news outlet Yajnoub 2 Yajnoub Website posted a video of a female correspondent in a black hijab and a mint green dress on Facebook reporting from the site of the incident and showing the destruction of the family’s home, which supports the conclusion that it was an airstrike that hit the house. Furnishings as well as everyday household items can be spotted among the rubble.

Three of the available sources attributed the attack to the Israeli military.