UN refugee agency says staff among those killed in Israeli air strikes in Lebanon

BBC:

The UN’s refugee agency says one of its staff members and one of her children were killed in an Israeli air strike in eastern Lebanon – one of well over a thousand such strikes over the past two days.

The UNHCR said Dina Darwiche’s home was hit on Monday. Her husband and her older son were rescued and are in hospital with serious injuries, the agency said.

Ms Darwiche had worked in UNHCR’s Bekaa office for 12 years.

Meanwhile Ali Basma, who had worked for UNHCR’s office in the southern city of Tyre as a cleaner, was also killed.

In a statement, the agency said it was “outraged and deeply saddened” by their killing.

“Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon are now relentlessly claiming hundreds of civilian lives,” said UNHCR’s global director Filippo Grandi on Tuesday.

“And I am very saddened to confirm that two UNHCR colleagues were also killed yesterday.”

Ms Darwiche’s friends described her as “the gentlest and kindest soul we knew.”

“She had been dedicated to her humanitarian work with UNHCR for as long as I can remember,” wrote Professor Jasmin Lilian Diab, an academic at the Lebanese American University, on X. “I am broken. I am absolutely destroyed.”

Funerals for those killed have been taking place across Lebanon.

In the southern city of Sidon, Mohammed Hilal had gathered with hundreds of other mourners to say goodbye to his daughter at a funeral also held for eight other people.

Three Hezbollah members were among those being buried, according to Reuters news agency which filmed the scene.