The Missing of Southern Lebanon: Families of Detainees Demand Answers

At 1:30 a.m. on March 24, a high-pitched scream cut through the village of Halta, near Lebanon’s southeastern border, followed by the sound of gunfire. The village’s roughly 200 families were jolted awake.

“We thought it was a brawl between locals,” Issa Abdel Aal, Halta’s mukhtar, the village’s elected leader, told The Public Source. He stepped outside, thinking he might intervene, but within moments bullets began raining down as fighter jets rumbled overhead.

“Israeli forces were in the village,” he recalled. “Anyone who went outside would be shot.”

Messages flooded the village WhatsApp group. Residents warned that Israeli occupation forces were moving through the streets and had already raided the home of Shadi Abdel Aal, abducting the young father of two. 

A few blocks away, Ashraf al-Kaderi stepped onto his balcony and was struck by Israeli gunfire, leaving him with severe injuries to his leg and pelvis. Fifteen-year-old Mohammad Ali Abdel Aal, a distant relative of the mukhtar’s, also stepped outside to see what was happening. When he saw the soldiers, he quickly turned back.

He did not make it. Israeli soldiers shot and killed him instantly.

The raid reflects a broader pattern of Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon, during which residents have been killed, abducted, and driven from their villages. At least 30 Lebanese are held by the Zionist settler colony after being seized during land and sea incursions over the past two years, both during the war on Lebanon and the precarious ceasefires that followed.

Several abductions have occurred in recent months, with the latest reported incident on May 19 involving three individuals near the Kfarhamam–Kfarshouba road in the south.

At least 30 Lebanese have been abducted during Israel's land and sea incursions into Lebanon over the past two years.

Ahmad Chokor, a former Lebanese General Security officer, disappeared in mid-December after a collaborator with Israel's Mossad lured him to a meeting. Then, on February 9, Israeli forces raided the Hasbaiyya district before dawn and seized Atwi Atwi, the former mayor of the village of al-Habbariyeh and an official with al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, a Sunni political organization.

“Shadi Abdel Aal is known in the village as a farmer,” the mukhtar said. “He takes care of his cows every day. We don’t have anyone here affiliated with political parties or anything that would make them targets. The village is predominantly Sunni.”

The pattern of abductions shows little distinction between civilians and resistance fighters and crosses sectarian and political lines. On March 17, Israeli forces entered the village of Kfarshouba, also predominantly Sunni, and detained Kassem al-Kaderi before releasing him shortly afterward.

Abdel Aal’s family has raised the case with the Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). They are unlikely to receive an answer anytime soon.

For months, families of detainees say they have tried to push forward the case of the Lebanese detainees. Their primary demand is simple: to know where their loved ones are and what condition they are in. Many families said the only information they received came from Palestinian and Lebanese abductees released as part of ceasefire deals.

Working alongside the Committee of Representatives of Prisoners and Freed Detainees and the Lebanese Association for Prisoners and Detainees, relatives have organized protests, issued statements, and sought meetings with state officials. They met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on December 12 and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on January 29. They left those meetings with assurances, they said, but little to no action followed.

Waiting for Answers

Lebanese organizers founded the Lebanese Association for Prisoners and Detainees in 1982, the first year of Israel’s brutal 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. During that period, the association documented detainees’ cases, maintained contact with detainees through coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), organized sit-ins, and arranged medical treatment for wounded and sick detainees.

After the liberation of the South in 2000, the association shifted toward supporting freed detainees and their families and addressing the long-term effects of detention, Ahmad Taleb, the association’s head, told The Public Source. 

Taleb himself says he was detained by the Lebanese Forces and later handed over to the Israeli regime, spending more than 12 years in detention in occupied Palestine.

Recent abductions have revived memories of the years of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. 

Between October 2023 and the November 2024 ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel, Israeli forces abducted 10 people from inside Lebanon. In one of the most high-profile cases, Israeli naval commandos seized Lebanese navy captain Imad Amhaz from the coastal town of Batroun on November 2. CCTV footage later showed armed men leading him away with his shirt pulled over his head.

Families say the 15-month truce, from November 2024 until March 2026, brought little relief. During those months, Israeli occupation forces abducted another 12 people.

Families say the 15-month truce, from November 2024 until March 2026, brought little relief. During those months, Israeli occupation forces abducted another 12 people.

During the war that started in October 2023, the association initially avoided organizing protests. “We thought the detainees would be released as part of the ceasefire,” Taleb said. “We waited eight months to see whether the government would act, but it became clear it would not.”

Since then, the association and families of the detainees have tried to keep the cases visible through protests, media appearances, and meetings with officials and international organizations. In September, the committee held its first televised press conference alongside detainees’ relatives, publicly launching an ongoing campaign.

On January 27, families delivered a letter to the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Lebanon, urging the organization to determine the detainees’ whereabouts and ensure their rights are protected.

In a written response to The Public Source’s inquiry into the detainee’s case, the ICRC said it has not had access to Israeli detention facilities since October 7, 2023, despite repeated requests. The organization added that it continues to press for access.

Families also appealed to U.N. Special Coordinator Janine Hennis-Plasschaert and other international organizations, urging them to pressure Israel to release the detainees.

Taleb said the Lebanese state — not families or advocacy groups like theirs — should be leading efforts to follow the detainees’ cases through international institutions and human rights organizations, including working with the UN Special Rapporteur on Enforced Disappearances.

But families told The Public Source that government officials have not contacted them directly.  “We want the government to adopt this case so it can move forward and we can act alongside it,” Taleb said. “But they won’t even acknowledge it.” 

Crossing Back 

On January 26, 2025, Hussein Karaki, 36, was driving his sister Fatima and their mother, Tamara Chehimi, toward their border village of Markaba. It was the first time they would see their home since fleeing months earlier. They parked in Wadi al-Hujeir and continued on foot — a two-hour trek across bulldozed terrain, dirt mounds, and fallen trees. Along the way, they were joined by the family of Rabih Zaraket and his two 16-year-old sons.

At the entrance to the village, barbed wire blocked the road. As they approached it, Israeli gunfire erupted.

Tamara Chhimi and Rabih Zaraket were killed instantly. Hussein collapsed after occupation forces shot him in the back.

“I dissociated and went to another world,” Fatima told The Public Source. 

Israeli soldiers soon surrounded her and the two teenagers. “They were pointing their firearms at me constantly, trying to intimidate me,” she said. “They kept pressuring Hussein to stand up even though he couldn’t.”

The soldiers confiscated her phone and initially refused to allow her to call an ambulance. 

After examining Hussein themselves, they placed him in a military vehicle and withdrew. “One officer glanced at me as if deciding whether to take me too,” Fatima recalled.

Her father later arrived to retrieve her. Because ambulances could not reach the village, her mother’s body had to be carried out on a motorcycle while Fatima retraced the same route back to Wadi al-Hujeir on foot. 

Since her mother’s killing and brother’s abduction, Fatima Karaki has become an unofficial spokesperson for the detainees’ families, frequently appearing on television and online media to demand answers.

“The hardest part is carrying this responsibility,” she said. “When Hussein was here, I never had to account for anything. I relied on him for everything. He was my world.”

A similar scene unfolded a day later in the nearby village of Taybeh. Hassan Hammoud had gone with his wife, Zeinab Bahjat, to check on their home. At around noon, Bahjat returned to Jibchit, where the family had been staying, while Hammoud stayed behind to repair the water pipes and refill the tank.

As night fell, Israeli soldiers descended from a hill near the al-Abbad military post.

Hammoud’s youngest nephew spotted them and alerted his father, initially thinking they were Lebanese soldiers. When the family realized Israeli forces were advancing toward Hammoud’s house, they called to warn him.

Hammoud ran toward a nearby olive grove, hoping to hide. The soldiers spotted him using red laser lights and immediately abducted him.

Hammoud ran toward a nearby olive grove, hoping to hide. The soldiers spotted him using red laser lights and immediately abducted him.

Ahmad Chokor, a Lebanese detainee released on March 11, 2025, and unrelated to the Lebanese security officer abducted in December, later told the family he had seen Hammoud in Ofer prison in occupied Palestine. According to Chokor, Hammoud constantly spoke about missing his relatives and worrying about his children, especially his youngest daughter, four-year-old Hawraa.

“She knows what happened to her father,” Bahjat told The Public Source. “When she hears the Israeli drones, she tells us: ‘These are the ones who took dad.’”

Since Hammoud’s disappearance, Bahjat worked full-time as a teacher to support the family. “I try to keep Zahraa strong and tell her that we must be patient,” she said. The eldest daughter Zahraa has joined protests demanding the detainees’ release and occasionally spoken publicly at demonstrations. 

But, at home, Hammoud’s absence has cast a shadow over important milestones in the young girl’s life, including fasting for the first time during Ramadan and her coming-of-age ceremony when she first wore the hijab. 

Making the Missing Visible 

Alongside the detainees’ association, another effort emerged to keep the detainees from disappearing from the Lebanese government’s agenda. In December, journalists, writers, photographers, and videographers launched the Popular Campaign for the Freedom of Lebanese Detainees and Abductees in Israeli Prisons.

“It’s more of a space than a structure,” journalist Hussein Chaabane, one of the campaign’s organizers, told The Public Source. “People come together, share their skills, and produce work that keeps the case visible.”

The campaign shares updates and circulates posters, photographs, and short videos online while organizing vigils and public gatherings intended to keep pressure on the Lebanese authorities.

Many of these efforts slowed when the fighting intensified again on March 2. For some families, however, the renewed confrontations have revived hope that their relatives could soon return home. 

The Public Source previously spoke with the family of Ali Fneish, a fisherman abducted during a fishing trip on June 4, 2025. His sister, Mariam Fneish, said the family supports the resistance’s decision to enter the war, seeing military pressure as the only way to secure the detainees’ release.

“We tried to work with the government, but it was a major disappointment,” Fneish told The Public Source. “They gave us nothing. We support the war because we believe it will lead to victory — and the return of the detainees.”

Fatima Karaki expressed a similar position. “As families of detainees, we’ve lost hope in diplomacy bringing concrete results,” she said. “Without the resistance’s pressure and without detainees on the Israeli side as leverage, nothing will change.”