On October 10, 2024, Israel conducted one of its deadliest bombing operations in central Beirut, devastating the Basta neighborhood. The attack targeted Hezbollah financier and negotiator Wafic Safa. The strike’s shockwave pulverized a residential building and destroyed neighboring facades, killing 17 civilians and injuring 117 others. Despite the intensity of the coordinated attack, Safa survived. No evacuation order had been issued to the densely populated area. The 17 victims of the strike shared no direct connections to Hezbollah. Instead, they represented a cross-section of society’s most vulnerable: Syrian refugees fleeing Assad’s regime, working-class Lebanese residents, and families already displaced by Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon. They had sought sanctuary in Basta, only to have their lives tragically cut short. For the french magazine Paris Match, I investigated the human stories behind these statistics, tracing the individual narratives of lives destroyed in a single bombing – one of countless daily strikes in this ongoing conflict. According to UNICEF data as of December 28, 2024, the war has claimed at least 4,047 lives, including 316 children and 790 women, while forcing 1.2 million people from their homes.