Qana Airstrike - Attack; Medical and Humanitarian Response

Attack; Medical and Humanitarian Response

The airstrike was carried out using two bombs, at least one of which was precision guided, which were dropped in the hour following 1 a.m. on July 30, The second bomb was dropped five to fifteen minutes after the first. The aerial attack killed members of the Shalhoub and Hashem families who had used an underground garage below a three-story apartment building as a shelter during the bombing. Initial news reports state that the families were asleep when the two bombs were dropped on their building. While Israel had directed residents of South Lebanon to flee the conflict, roads out of the area were also subject to Israeli bombardment. One of the eight survivors of the blast said that attacks on the roads out of Qana discouraged the two families from leaving. Anthony Shadid, reporting for the Washington Post, described the scene he saw that day: "Most of the dead had choked on flying dirt and other debris. Their bodies, intact, preserved their final gestures: a raised arm called for help, an old man pulled on pants. Twelve-year-old Hussein Hashem lay curled in the fetal position, his mouth seeming to have vomited earth. Mohammed Chalhoub sat on the ground, his right hand broken. Khadja, his wife and Hasna, his mother, were dead, as were his daughters, Hawra and Zahra, aged twelve and two. As were his sons, Ali, ten: Yahya, nine; and Assem, seven."

The Christian Science Monitor reported that further airstrikes and artillery attacks, which destroyed several houses in Qana, delayed the rescue response. Sami Yazbuk, the head of the Red Cross in Tyre, told The Guardian that the first call about the bombing was received at 7 a.m. He said that previous shelling on the road to Qana had delayed the arrival of Red Cross personnel.