Incident Code
Incident Date
Location
Airwars Assessment
Around midday on September 26, 2024, eight civilians, including children, were injured at the Matraba border crossing in the Hermel district between Lebanon and Syria by the declared Israeli airstrike.
The Israel Defense Forces declared the strike in its Telegram channel at 12:42 the same day, writing: “A short while ago, IAF fighter jets struck infrastructure along the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the terrorist organization used against Israeli civilians.” The statement also said that “the IDF is continuing to operate to dismantle and degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities and terrorist infrastructure.”
According to the Telegram channel of news platform Lebanon News, the director of the Matraba crossing, Iyad Alloush, said that the bombing resulted in the injury of eight people, all of whom worked at the border. Four of the wounded were reported to work in customs, and four in immigration. Further information about the injured – other than that the wounds constituted “varying degrees” of severity – was not made available. The same report referenced Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamieh, who said that the strikes hit the Syrian side of the border.
Videos circulating on social media showed plumes of smoke from the direct aftermath of the airstrike. Others showed the injured being transported to the hospital, including footage from @qstreetjournal on X/Twitter of three adult men and two children who all have visible injuries to their bodies and faces.
Another video by @AsharqNews on X/Twitter shows more footage of the same injured civilians being treated in the medical facility, wearing casts, bandages, and IVs while lying in medical beds.
More photos show the rubble and the destroyed landscape of the attack in screen grabs from OSJ News, posted by Shireen Al-Ali on Facebook.
X/Twitter user @fahadddd83 alleged that the strike hit “a shipment of missiles and weapons.”
Although the Israeli military confirmed the strike, it failed to acknowledge the civilian harm resulting from it. Therefore, Airwars has graded the strike status of the incident as “declared”, but the civilian harm status as “fair.”