Residents of southern Syria buried seven civilians, including three children from the same family, on Tuesday following a massacre caused by Jordanian airstrikes on Daraa province, as a grieving grandfather described desperately searching through the rubble for his grandchildren.
The funeral procession began at Al-Sanamayn Military Hospital and travelled to the town of Al-Tuff in the Lajat region of northeastern Daraa, where mourners gathered to bid farewell to those killed in Monday evening's bombing.
The strikes killed seven civilians and wounded three others, bringing the total number of casualties to 10, according to information obtained by The New Arab.
Among the dead were three siblings, Yassin Hadi al-Sulaim, 11, Osama Hadi al-Sulaim, eight, and Lamis Hadi al-Sulaim, six, whose father has been missing since his detention under the former regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Their grandfather, Masoud al-Sulaim, told The New Arab that he had returned home on Monday evening after working at a well, prayed and eaten with his family before going to sleep.
He woke about an hour later to what he believed was thunder, accompanied by lightning and the sound of aircraft overhead.
Moments later, an explosion struck as he walked towards a wall, forcing him to take cover. When he emerged, he discovered that the place where his family had been staying had been destroyed.
"I called and called, but nobody answered. I just wanted someone to say 'ah', but nobody spoke, nobody opened their mouth," he told The New Arab.
He said he began searching frantically through the rubble, moving stones and debris in the hope of finding survivors.
His three grandchildren were among those killed.
Al-Sulaim said other grandchildren, from his daughter's family, had been inside a building made of concrete blocks and corrugated metal sheets when parts of its walls collapsed during the bombing.
Their mother managed to pull them from the rubble, and they were taken to hospital with injuries.
He said he had received telephone calls reassuring him that they were alive but had not yet been able to see them.
The other confirmed fatalities were identified as Lotfiya Hosni al-Ali, 64, Zaher Masoud al-Sulaim, 23, Riyad al-Karad, 65, and Mutlaq al-Sulaim, 70.
Mohammed al-Dukhan, a relative of the victims, told The New Arab that he initially believed the aircraft overhead were Israeli.
He said the strike hit a civilian tent sheltering an elderly woman and her three grandchildren, whose father had been detained in Syria's notorious Saydnaya prison in 2018.
Jordan acknowledges civilian deaths
Jordan expressed regret on Tuesday over the civilian deaths but defended its airstrikes, saying they targeted Islamic State (IS) positions linked to the perpetrators of a deadly church attack in the Jordanian governorate of Karak.
Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said the operation was based on intelligence about threats to Jordanian national security and claimed that more than 20 IS members had been killed and a large weapons depot destroyed.
Momani insisted that Jordan had taken precautions to avoid civilian casualties and deliberately avoided locations where civilians were believed to be present.
However, an unnamed Jordanian source told the state-owned Al-Mamlaka television channel that civilians had been killed when an airstrike hit a small concrete building near their tent.
The source claimed the building housed an alleged militant and that the force of the explosion killed an elderly woman and three children sheltering nearby.
Jordan's military said the operation, named "Jordanian Deterrence – Hammoud", targeted groups allegedly linked to the recent attack on Hammoud Church in Karak.
Momani said Jordan would work with Syria to establish a joint committee to investigate the consequences of the operation and improve security coordination.
Damascus condemns violation of sovereignty
Syria's foreign ministry strongly condemned the airstrikes, describing the bombing of locations in Daraa and the entry of Jordanian aircraft into Syrian airspace without prior coordination as a violation of national sovereignty.
In a statement on Tuesday, Damascus said the attacks were unacceptable under any circumstances and violated the principles of good neighbourly relations.
The ministry nevertheless stressed the importance of maintaining relations with Jordan and announced plans for an urgent joint security committee to prevent further incidents and improve border coordination.
Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al-Din al-Baba offered condolences to the victims' families and said authorities were working to establish the circumstances of the bombing.
He emphasised that protecting civilians must remain a priority in efforts to combat terrorism and cross-border crime.
The massacre has left several generations of one family dead, including three young siblings whose father disappeared into the prisons of the former Assad regime, as their relatives struggle to come to terms with another devastating loss.