"Made in USA." A banner unfurled by Hezbollah across a tangle of rubble, concrete slabs and collapsed walls greets passers-by in a square in the village of Maaysra. The faces of men, women and children are displayed too, their smiles frozen forever.

It was here, on September 25, that an Israeli strike killed 16 people in a square of three terraced houses – possibly with a missile supplied by the United States. Maaysra, a small Shiite enclave in the predominantly Christian Kesrouan region, 40 kilometers north of Beirut, is the first place in the region to have suffered a deadly air raid since the start of the conflict.

On Thursday, October 3, another bombing raid targeted a house in the village without causing any casualties. "During the 2006 war, the Israelis attacked two bridges in Jounieh [20 kilometers lower down], but this is the first time in my memory that a village in the vicinity has been bombed," said Georges Aoun, the mayor of Zaaitra, a neighboring Christian village.

"I thought it was impossible for the war to catch up with me here," said Sohad Quetiche. He thought he had put enough distance between himself and the clashes rocking his native village, Houla, in southern Lebanon. But he was wounded in the September 25 bombing and his mother, Saada Ayoub, 77, was killed. His wife and four children were also wounded.

'They were covered in blood'

At around 10am, the first strike targeted a house belonging to the family of a Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Mohamed Amro, presented as the group's civilian leader in the region. He was not there, but 10 members of his family were killed. Six displaced people from the south of the country who were staying in adjacent homes also lost their lives, including Quetiche's mother. One of the victims had arrived in the village, home to 150 displaced families, only the day before. He has still not been identified.

The remains of a 4-year-old child, Amir Wissam Hussein, torn to pieces by the explosion, have also still not been found. In the village cemetery, the six victims from the south have been given a temporary burial. Toys have been placed on the graves of the youngest. As volunteers tended the site, 6-year-old Sari, the youngest child in the Quetiche family, sat on his cousin's grave, speechless.

"Everything happened suddenly. We were drinking coffee in the house. Then I saw like a flash. I remember my son and daughter talking to me, but I couldn't hear anything. They were covered in blood. I lost consciousness several times, then regained it. It was only when I woke up in hospital that I learned what had really happened," remembers Zahra, Sohad's wife, whose veil covers dozens of stitches along her skull.

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