Four members of a Lebanese family with U.S. ties — including three children and their father — were killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon over the weekend that left a total of five people dead, according to relatives.
Shadi Charara, a car dealer, was killed while driving home to the southern seaside city of Tyre on Sunday with his wife and four children after having lunch at his father-in-law’s house in the town of Bint Jbeil, a few miles from the border with Israel.
The Israeli military has acknowledged carrying out the strike, saying in a statement that it had been targeting a Hezbollah militant, whom it did not name, and that he “operated from within a civilian population.”
Sam Bazzi, the children’s maternal grandfather, told The Associated Press the family thought they were safe because they had no affiliation with Hezbollah.
In its statement, the Israeli military acknowledged that civilians had been killed in the strike and said that it was reviewing the incident.
“We’re regular citizens and we don’t belong to any group,” Bazzi said. “And so we thought we had nothing to do with it and we were just living normally, coming and going.”
The family was only a few hundred yards from Bazzi’s house when a motorcycle passed by, and at the same moment, the Israeli drone struck. As well as Charara, the strike claimed the lives of his twin 18-month-old son and daughter Hadi and Silan, 8-year-old daughter Celine, and the motorcyclist, a local man named Mohammed Majed Mroue.
The children’s mother, Amina Bazzi, and her oldest daughter, Asil, survived but were seriously wounded. Bazzi, her face bruised and swollen, was carried on a stretcher through the crowd at the funeral of her husband and children in Bint Jbeil.
Amani Bazzi, who was injured Sunday in the town of Bint Jbeil, shows a portrait of one her three kids who were killed after an Israeli drone strike hit her family car, as she lies in Tibnin hospital, southern Lebanon, Sept. 22, 2025. / Credit: Mohammad Zaatari/AP
At the funeral, the coffins were draped in Lebanese flags, and only Lebanese flags were waving in the crowd. The distinctive yellow Hezbollah flag is typically flown at funerals in southern Lebanon — one of the group’s main strongholds — when its operatives are being buried.
A U.S.-brokered ceasefire halted the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November, two months after hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously in parts of Lebanon and Syria in a sophisticated, remote attack. The conflict began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in conflict.
Since the ceasefire took effect, Israel has continued to launch near-daily airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Israeli officials frequently say it is targeting Hezbollah militants or infrastructure. Hezbollah has only acknowledged firing across the border once since the ceasefire, but Israel says the militant group is trying to rebuild its capabilities.
The ceasefire doesn’t cover fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, another militant group that is backed by Iran. Ceasefire efforts in that conflict have stalled.
Charara’s sister, Amina, who lives in Dearborn, Mich., said houses belonging to the family were damaged or destroyed in last year’s war, but they had counted themselves lucky that none of their relatives had been harmed.
“We always said thank God we only lost stones and not human beings,” she said. “The houses and stones can be rebuilt, but how can my brother return?”
A woman stands next to portraits of Shadi Charara and three of his children killed Sunday in an Israeli drone strike that hit their car, during a funeral procession in Bint Jbeil, southern Lebanon, Sept. 23, 2025. / Credit: Mohammad Zaatari/AP
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said after the strike that Shadi Charara and his children were U.S. citizens. However, family members told the AP that Charara did not have U.S. citizenship but that his siblings and father live in the United States and are citizens. They said Charara had applied to join them and recently received approval but was still waiting for visas.
A State Department official declined to comment on “personal details.”
The European Union on Sunday condemned the strike and called for “full respect and implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel.”
“Security concerns should be addressed by making full use of the monitoring mechanism established in the framework of the ceasefire agreement,” it said.
Amina Charara said the family in the U.S. had been constantly worried about their relatives in Lebanon.
“My brother was a man who loved life and loved his family. He had nothing to do with politics. He was working to provide for his family,” she said. “What was the fault of the children for Israel to kill them?”
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