Rana Jaber told her husband that if God blessed them with a daughter, she would be named Narjis, Arabic for daffodil. After having twin boys, Jaber wanted a little girl she could dress up.<\/p>\n
Jaber got her girl and made good on her promise: Narjis was born in 2020. Her mother was delighted to find that just like her namesake flower, her daughter\u2019s hair was light. Narjis seemed \u201cwise beyond her years\u201d, Jaber said, recalling how her daughter would comfort her whenever she would cry.<\/p>\n
As Jaber rushed to pack her daughter and two sons into the car on 2 March as she fled Israeli bombs, Narjis comforted her once again. \u201cMama, you\u2019re my life. Don\u2019t cry, I love you so much,\u201d Narjis told her mother as stress began to overwhelm her.<\/p>\n
Narjis\u2019s mother says she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n
It was one of the last things Jaber remembers her daughter saying. A few hours later, Israel dropped a bomb on their family home in Maifadoun, south Lebanon<\/a>, killing six-year-old Narjis and her aunt.<\/p>\n \u201cI keep replaying it. How our lives were torn apart. She was like a blossom. This girl \u2026 Oh my heart is breaking. I still can\u2019t believe my daughter is gone,\u201d Jaber said through sobs. The 34-year-old mother and her two 10-year-old sons, Abbas and Ali, were trapped under the rubble after the airstrike but survived with mild injuries.<\/p>\n Jaber has no shortage of pictures of her daughter: Narjis always has a wide smile, wearing the many dresses her parents bought for her, posing in her classroom with a papier-mache apple bearing a capital \u201cA\u201d held proudly in her hands. \u201cShe wanted to be a doctor,\u201d Jaber said.<\/p>\n Narjis was one of the first children killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began on 2 March after Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel, triggering an Israeli military campaign. Since then, 120 other children in Lebanon have been killed by Israel, nearly 10% of all deaths in the country.<\/p>\n Her death, three weeks later, has left Jaber\u2019s family in shock. Jaber\u2019s voice, already spoken at a whisper, begins to break as soon as she mentions her daughter\u2019s name.<\/p>\n Abbas goes to the shop and wants to buy chocolates for his sister. His mother has to remind him that Narjis is gone; he starts to cry. Later, he will act as if she is coming back again.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir behaviour has changed. They do strange things now. My sons weren\u2019t like this before. Now if he hears a loud noise, he panics and starts shaking, crying,\u201d Jaber said.<\/p>\n chart<\/a><\/p>\n Other families have no members left to mourn the dead children. All six members of the Basma family \u2013 mother, father and four children \u2013 were killed in an airstrike on their home in Nabatieh on 14 March.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were a poor family, it\u2019s sad. I told them to flee, but they said they didn\u2019t have the money. As soon as I heard there was an airstrike on the neighbourhood, I called [the father]. But he didn\u2019t pick up,\u201d said Hussein Youssef, a neighbour and close friend of the family.<\/p>\n The Basma family, who were killed in an airstrike on their home in Nabatieh on 14 March. Photograph: No credit<\/p>\n The family had fled during the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2024, but this time the father, who worked as a painter, could not afford a prolonged displacement.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were very kind, quiet, peaceful children. They were all very social kids in the neighbourhood, they brought life to the whole area,\u201d said Youssef.<\/p>\n The death of the family deeply upset Youssef\u2019s own children, who were very close to the family. They did not expect to lose their classmates so suddenly.<\/p>\n \u201cMy son cried a lot. He and his friends keep posting their photos and talking about them all the time,\u201d Youssef said. \u201cHe was especially affected by the death of the little girl: she used to jump on him and play with him. The little girl really broke his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n Children growing up in Lebanon have experienced two wars in just a three-year time span. Israeli bombing, while primarily targeting south Lebanon, has touched virtually all parts of the country, shattering a sense of safety for children.<\/p>\n