On September 23rd, 2024, brothers Ali Hussein Saleh and Rami Hussein Saleh were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in the town of Khreibeh, located in the Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon.

Ali Hussein was reported by Phoenicia News to be a corporal with the Lebanese Army’s 2nd Artillery Regiment, and served in the military alongside his brother, Rami.

At the time of writing, the Lebanese National Army are not party to the current conflict, and there is no information to suggest that Ali or Rami were an exception. As such, both brothers have been coded as civilians. Airwars will update this assessment should additional information come to light.

As reported by Dahieh News, the funeral was held in the town’s Husayniyya, a building in the Shia tradition designed for spiritual practice, and the brothers were buried in the town’s cemetery.

Posting in tribute to the brothers, Ali Ismail stated: “They lived together… They grew up together… They were martyred together.”

Numerous mourning messages and photos of the young brothers taken before their death were shared on social media by their loved ones. In one of the images reposted by friends and family, Rami is seen with a dark beard and moustache, wearing a black leather jacket and black t-shirt. Images of Ali showed him with a lighter beard and moustache, posing outside. In another image, his facial hair is freshly shaved, and he wears what appears to be a military uniform, though the image is cropped so that no patches and pins are visible in the frame.

Several local news outlets also reported on the airstrike and the brothers’ passing, including Sadadahiechannel, Phoenicia News, and OLN-One Lebanon News Network.

Dahieh News’s post included a photograph showing two caskets: one covered with the Lebanese flag and the other, a Hezbollah flag.

While Hezbollah operates an active militant wing, their political presence is also deeply enmeshed within the state, providing social and organisational services, primarily in the Shia majority areas in Southern Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley, and the suburbs of Beirut. With this context in mind, Airwars is not considering a general association with Hezbollah to equate with militant/non-civilian status. Given that there is no indication of militant activities in association with Hezbollah or otherwise, Airwars has counted the two brothers as civilians. Airwars will update the incident should new information become available.

Where sources identified a belligerent, all sources attributed the strike to Israeli forces.