Israeli strikes ‘killed five members of my family’ including cousin 10 days from her wedding

Sana Chamseddin told the PA news agency that her uncle, his wife and his three daughters died on Monday.

Smoke rises from an Israeli air strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut (Hussein Malla/AP/PA) (AP)

A British woman returning to the UK from Lebanon said Israeli air strikes have killed five members of her family, including a cousin 10 days away from her wedding day.

Sana Chamseddin clutched her son in her arms at Heathrow Airport on Saturday and spoke of her guilt at escaping besieged Lebanon and leaving behind loved ones in “unsafe places”.

Her uncle, his wife, and his three daughters who were all in their twenties, were killed when their home in the Lebanese city of Tyre was bombed by the Israel Defence Forces, she told the PA news agency.

Two of the daughters were doctors and one was an engineer who was supposed to get married in 10 days, said Mrs Chamseddin.

Mrs Chamseddin and her husband are British citizens and returned to London with their sons, two-month-old Zien and one-year-old Jawad.

This morning was the end of the world - people running in the street, they left their homes, running in the street, sleeping in the street, just because they want to be in a safe place

Abbas Chamseddin

She broke down in tears as she told PA: “On Monday morning we wake up as a big bomb (hit) just beside our house, and we saw on the news that they said another round (of attacks) will start in one hour, so we didn’t take it seriously because we don’t fight – we are normal civilians.

“I was talking with my uncle over WhatsApp, he told me that it’s okay, it’s not going to bomb him, but we lost the connection when they bombed around us.

“When we arrived after 10 hours on the road we found out that he didn’t make it – me and my husband feel very guilty to come here (to England) and (leave) our family in unsafe places.”

She added her uncle “was the perfect person, he liked to live and to talk all the time”.

Her husband, biochemical engineer Abbas Chamseddin, showed photographs of the family and said: “Look at this smile, this is the future of Lebanon – they’re killing the future of Lebanon, look at the smile, this is what they kill.”

Footage seen by PA shows fires blazing inside many blocks of flats, and Sana’s uncle and his family lived in one of them, Mr Chamseddin said.

He told PA that as bombs fell they fled to Beirut Airport: “This morning was the end of the world – people running in the street, they left their homes, running in the street, sleeping in the street, just because they want to be in a safe place, because they left their home in the night.

“We are on our way to the airport (and) the taxi suddenly would go this way, suddenly go this way, and why? Because there were bombs everywhere and we see them with our eyes.”

One of the photos showed dust on Zien’s face which Mr Chamseddin said was “from the bombs on the way to the airport”.

Video taken from Beirut Airport by the father shows smoke rising above nearby buildings.

Another family who landed at Heathrow on Saturday, who did not want to be identified, said they have not slept or eaten in a week as they watched destruction “like something out of a horror movie” night after night.

They took the same flight as the Chamseddins and said they have nowhere to go once they leave the airport.

The mother, a 45-year-old who grew up in Chelsea, London, said: “We ran away with nothing, we just left our belongings – we didn’t sleep all night.”

She said travelling to Beirut Airport “was a scene from a film that you’d see in the cinema”, adding “I couldn’t believe it – red smoke on the right, on the left, red smoke, the smell of burning.

“Yesterday we were in Beirut when they bombarded this area where they said they bombarded the head of Hezbollah, we were there – the sound was horrific.”

A car sits in a crater in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday (Hussein Malla/AP/PA) (AP)

She said she counted 10 blasts and that her apartment was shaking, adding: “I have a small apartment on the 13th floor, (it was) absolutely terrifying, earthquake, worse than an earthquake.

“They didn’t use drones, they used planes, there are civilians there, there are innocent kids, innocent women.”

She landed at Heathrow with her daughters, aged 21 and 10, and her 12-year-old son. They all live in the Barbir Bridge area of Beirut.

Her father, 70, and mother, 60, were also with them and live in the Mathaf area of the city.

Her eldest daughter said: “It was really actually very horrific, we were terrified, very scared, it was like something from a horror movie honestly.

“I can still hear the sounds, we haven’t slept for a week, especially yesterday night, and yesterday evening, all throughout the night just constant bombings, all the way through the night – every few minutes they would bomb before sunrise, then they stopped a bit.

“There are a lot of people that are very displaced, sleeping in the streets – we’ve seen it with our eyes as when we were leaving today to the airport, the roads when we were going to the airport, it was hell.

“You don’t know when anywhere is safe.”

The young woman, who did not want to be identified, was due to finish a mathematics degree in December but said she will not be able to because of the attacks.

She said a 20-year-old student at her university was killed in an Israeli strike when he returned to his university dormitory in Dahiyeh to collect some clothes and added that many of her friends and family members have been displaced.

More than 720 people have been killed in Lebanon since the conflict escalated on Monday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The United Nations says the number displaced by the conflict from southern Lebanon has more than doubled, with more than 211,000 people affected.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel on October 7, sparking the Israel-Hamas war.

Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, raising fears that Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 7 would be repeated in Lebanon.

The Israel Defence Forces have been approached for comment.