Weeks after four men went missing and their case made headlines in the country, the remains of three people were found in a South Lebanon area while a fourth man was found alive but injured, amid ongoing Israeli occupation .
The four men – Jawad Shadi Bazzi, Hadi Kamal al-Raqqa, Mohammad Ali Hassan and Ali Mousa Qashmar – had headed to southern Lebanon on two motorcycles on 15 June amid reports of a truce, but their families reported them missing after all communication with them was lost.
Lebanon’s Annahar newspaper said new developments in their case emerged on Friday after the remains of three people were discovered in Wadi al-Slouqi, and the fourth man, Mohammad Ali Hassan, was found still alive.
Authorities believe the remains may belong to Hassan’s three missing companions, pending DNA test results.
The remains and the injured survivor were found during search operations carried out by teams from the Islamic Health Society’s Civil Defence, with support from the Lebanese army, after a shepherd reported seeing two motorbikes in the area.
Upon arriving at the site, search and rescue teams found evidence of "extensive destruction".
Human remains belonging to three individuals were recovered during the operations. Remains believed to belong to two people were found near one motorcycle, while other remains, thought to belong to a third person, were discovered near the second bike.
Relevant authorities said the remains will undergo DNA testing to confirm the identities before their families are officially notified, but preliminary indications suggest they belong to three of the four missing men, according to Annahar .
During the search, rescuers noticed what appeared to be bloodstains near the site and followed the trail to a nearby house, where they found Hassan wounded after he had sheltered there for more than two weeks.
According to local reports, he was found with only a small amount of food and water that was believed to have sustained him. He was transferred to a hospital in the area where he reportedly remains in intensive care. Medical sources said his injuries appeared to be several days old. A video shared online shows Hassan's family speaking to him over the phone for the first time since he went missing.
Rescue teams continued to search the Wadi al-Slouqi area to ensure there are no other missing or injured people.
Their disappearance attracted widespread attention across the country. Family members last month staged a sit-in outside the Grand Serail in Beirut, demanding information about their relatives' fate. In an earlier statement, the families said the Lebanese army had received no information about the men through official channels and that no government authority had contacted them, deepening their anxiety throughout the past two weeks. The New Arab reached out to Public Health Ministry for comment.
It is unclear what the cause of their deaths were, with some speculating an Israeli attack or a mine.
Several other men have gone missing in southern Lebanon in recent weeks, and Israel is believed to still be holding over a dozen prisoners of war since 2024.
Patrick Antranik Bakarian, a member of Lebanon’s Republic Guard, disappeared weeks ago while heading to the southern coastal district of Tyre to visit his girlfriend. His mother on Thursday appeared on a popular nighttime talk show to appeal to the Lebanese and US governments to help her find her son. The US is a broker in the Lebanon-Israel negotiations.
She says she lost contact with her son after he reached the so-called “Yellow Line” – the Israeli buffer zone in southern Lebanon – and said she had received information that he may have been taken into Israeli territory.
Since all-out war resumed with Hezbollah on 2 March this year, Israel deepened its invasion of southern Lebanon and set up a 'security zone' along the entire border – the “Yellow Line” – now spanning between 600 and 700 square kilometres. It has refused to end its occupation before Hezbollah is disarmed.
Despite some attacks in recent days, there has been relative calm across southern Lebanon with a fragile ceasefire holding between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Lebanon and Israel in late June signed a framework deal that should see the Israeli military pull out of certain regions to allow the Lebanese army to move in and ensure the area has been cleared of Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure. The framework also calls for a broader peace deal between the enemy states.
Hezbollah has rejected the deal, and prefers Lebanon use the US-Iran talks as leverage to pressure Israel to end its attacks and leave Lebanese territory. Tehran has insisted that a ceasefire hold in southern Lebanon as part of its agreement with Washington that largely halted the Middle East war.
More than 4,300 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since fighting resumed in March.