Fadel Ayoub, 36: The corporal Israel killed in Kfar Tibnit
Behind the numbers are names and faces. Anatomy of the deadly strikes that claim civilian lives across Lebanon. Fadel Ayoub was going home to collect his belongings.
by Lyana ALAMEDDINE · L'Orient Today"He was the pride" of the family. The only one among eight brothers and sisters to have joined the army. An Israeli strike on Kfar Tibnit took the life of Corporal Fadel Abdallah Ayoub, around noon on Saturday, March 28, as he was coming to his village to pick up some belongings. It was the first time the 30-something had returned to the area after being displaced by Israel with his family.
At suhour, on Monday, March 2, Fadel, his wife, Khadija, 34, and their two children, Fadak, four years old, and Ali-Reda, five years old, had fled Kfar Tibnit, in the Nabatieh district, to escape the Israeli fire raining down on the South after the rockets launched by Hezbollah. Their destination: Minyeh, 172 kilometers away by car. The Ayoub family knows this Sunni village well to the North. They had already taken refuge there during the previous war. A second displacement, a new open wound. Fadel's family, his brother Nabil's, and another brother who died five years ago all share the same apartment. "Fadel was a part of me; he was my confidant," says Nabil, his older brother, 53.
On Saturday, March 28, Fadel went to his home to pick up some things: clothes, mouneh, for himself and his family. He sensed that the war would be long. The winter was harsh. He left Minyeh at dawn, around 6:30 a.m., to reach the hills of Kfar Tibnit. But the morning was already deadly. A drone strike targeted, in the village, an ambulance belonging to the Islamic Health Committee affiliated with Hezbollah. His brother Nabil, worried, called Fadel, who had already arrived. It was around 11:15 a.m. "Don’t worry, I’ll stay at the house for 15 minutes, then I’m going to see our uncle to say hello and make sure he doesn’t need anything. Then I’ll leave," Fadel told him.
Around noon, a drone targeted the café owned by Fadel's maternal uncle, which was located on the roadside. Informed and panicked, Nabil called a local first responder. The latter, with a choked voice, informed him of his brother's death. “My heart gave out,” says Nabil. It took three hours for first responders to reach the victims, "the time it took to coordinate with the army."
“Maybe if he had been rescued earlier, he would have survived… The doctor told me he hadn’t been dead long.” The family went to Saida, where the body had been taken. The uncle, Ali Toufaily, was also killed in the strike. His cousin Ahmad, a nurse at Marjayoun hospital, was wounded. “They were all civilians. The enemy strikes blindly,” insists Nabil.
'We want to live'
Saturday was bloody: Israel killed more than 60 people, including Al-Manar journalist Ali Choeib, nine first responders, and another soldier, Corporal Mohammad Toufaili, killed in another strike in Deir al-Zahrani. Since the beginning of the war, the army has lost eleven soldiers, including one "on duty," according to a military source. “We don’t want war... We want to live,” says Nabil, the father of four.
While on leave, Fadel took care of a retired officer. Aged 35, he joined the army in 2016, after three years of studying to become a nurse. The army offered stable employment, and he believed “in his country and in the institution.” Three years later, he married Khadija, his neighbor, with whom he would have two children. Given the economic crisis and a salary that had lost its value, like other soldiers, he found a second job distributing yogurt to feed his family.
But during the 2024 war, the family's building was damaged by Israeli strikes, forcing the family to rent an apartment in Kfar Tibnit for several months after the cease-fire, while repairing their home. “Nothing could break him. He did everything to give his children a happy childhood... Now, they cry for their father, ask to see him... and their mother is devastated,” says Nabil.
The corporal was buried wrapped in the Lebanese flag in Saida — his uncle was buried with the Amal Movement flag. A temporary grave for the “martyr of the nation,” a wadiaa, until he can be laid to rest in his village.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour.
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