“I’ve lost my family, but for what?”: Man’s wife and two daughters killed in Iranian strike on Israel

Cups of coffee are being carefully poured into small paper cups, each one served with a comforting embrace.

Close by, huddled under an arched courtyard, women of all ages are sitting, grieving in their own way.

Some are sobbing, others look dazed, others desperate.

Their intermittent wails of grief puncture the silence. Yet there’s a beautiful stillness about it all.

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We’ve arrived just at the moment Tamra, Israel, has come to a standstill.

Everyone here is waiting for the bodies of four members of the Khatib family to return, killed when a ballistic missile from Iran hit their home on Saturday night.

Manar Khatib was killed alongside two of her daughters – 20-year-old Shada, and 13-year-old Hala – and her sister-in-law, also called Manar.

Layan Diab, 23, is a cousin of the girls. She’s in disbelief.

“It’s a deep loss. It hurts my soul. We lost our entire family. Four people here. I can’t fathom it. I don’t understand. It’s unbelievable,” she says. And she’s fearful of the coming days.

“Every time we hear the sirens, people start to scream and remember,” she says.

Just down the street is the girls’ grieving father, Raja Khatib.

A doctor with a charming warmth, he starts to speak Italian, assuming we may be from Italy.

He’d just returned from a holiday there with his wife and children in Ferrara.

His eyes fill with tears as he says that if only he’d stayed a day longer, they would all be alive today.

‘I feel terrible. I feel fire in my body… I hope that I will survive this moment. I’ve lost my family, but for what? A missile from Iran?”

I ask if he sees an end to this conflict between Iran and Israel. He seems despairing.

“Conflict with Iran, Lebanon, Gaza. We have a government who want[s] war. We want peace. We want to live.”