The children of Abbas Ali Jiha; Mansouri, Lebanon

Apr 1996

an ambulance driver for the town, packed his family and several residents into the ambulance and fled the falling shells

He crammed thirteen terrified passengers into the vehicle. Abbas Jiha says that just as he was putting his children into the back of the ambulance, he saw two helicopters. "They were low, and the pilots seemed to be watching us.

"We left in a convoy of tractors and cars and headed for Amriyeh, where there was a U.N. post with Fijian soldiers on the main coast road to Tyre

approaching U.N. Checkpoint 1-23

A videotape by a Reuters camerawoman at the scene shows what happened next

Milliseconds after the ambulance cleared U.N. Checkpoint 1-23, a missile exploded through the back door, engulfing the vehicle in fire and smoke and hurling it some fifty feet through the air and into the living room of a house

The videotape shows the immediate aftermath

three children inside who were clearly in the last seconds of their life