Priest’s death in Lebanon brings war to a community that wanted peace

QLAYAA, Lebanon — The bells rang, their peals obscuring the buzz of the Israeli drone overhead as the casket of Father Pierre al-Rahi arrived at the parish he had served.

Only days before, Al-Rahi had stood in the very churchyard where the crowd assembled Wednesday for his funeral. He had announced that the people of Qlayaa would ignore Israel’s evacuation orders for southern Lebanon and remain.

“He gave us strength to stay rooted here. He kept repeating, ‘We’re staying,’” said Eveline Farah, a 67-year-old resident.

And he had lived up to his word, Farah added. So when an Israeli tank shell struck a house in the village on Monday, Al-Rahi and others rushed to help the elderly couple living there.

A Lebanese soldier stands next to a poster of the village’s priest, Father Pierre al-Rahi, during his funeral at the Christian Lebanese border village of Qlayaa on March 11, 2026.

(Rabih Daher / AFP/Getty Images)

That was when the second shell struck, wounding Al-Rahi and five others. He bled to death later that day, bringing home to Qlayaa, one of the few Christian-majority areas in Lebanon’s south, the latest conflict between Israel and the Islamic militants of Hezbollah. It’s a war no one here wants.

“No one in Qlayaa is fighting. There’s no Hezbollah here. They want to fight, let them. It has nothing to do with us,” said Najla Farah, 39, a distant relative of Eveline Farah.

As the funeral procession approached the churchyard, a group of women tossed rose petals and rice. Others surged towards the casket, dancing, clapping, ululating; all through tears.

“Get up, Father Pierre. Get up!” shouted one elderly woman as she stood in the pallbearers’ path, her screams turning her voice hoarse as she partially collapsed in the arms of a medic.

“You’re not someone to be carried!” she said. “No one can carry you!”

More than a week into escalated hostilities between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel, the war many Lebanese had hoped to avoid is intensifying, bringing devastation to communities that in the past had largely managed to stay on the sidelines.

Lebanese government health authorities on Wednesday said 634 people have been killed in the country since March 2, including 47 women and 91 children, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel and spurred an all-out Israeli campaign. About 816,000 people have been displaced.

Despite the gravity of those numbers, before Al-Rahi’s death, many here in Qlayaa had settled into a routine born of long familiarity with conflict.

After all, the roughly 4,000 people living here had weathered the conflagration in 2024 between Hezbollah and Israel. Although most of the towns and villages around them are under de-facto Hezbollah control, Qlayaa — like other Christian, Sunni Muslim and Druze communities dotting the bucolic hills of Lebanon’s south — had taken a resolutely neutral position. Those communities prevented Hezbollah fighters from taking positions in their areas and so Israel didn’t target them.

An Israeli airstrike hits Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, on March 11, 2026.

(Hassan Ammar / Associated Press)

That rhythm remained after a ceasefire took effect in late 2024, which saw Hezbollah disarm in the south and the Lebanese army take control of the area. Meanwhile, Israeli troops still occupied parts of the south, and the Israeli military conducted near-daily strikes that it said were aimed at stopping Hezbollah efforts to regroup.

In Qlayaa, less than three miles from Lebanon’s border with Israel, the sounds of artillery, airstrikes and drones had blended into background noise.

Even after Hezbollah launched what it said was a campaign to avenge the Feb. 28 killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and although Israel issued unprecedented evacuation orders for all of southern Lebanon soon after, “things felt normal,” Najla Farah said.

“We even had a wedding on Sunday. It just seemed less intense than the last war, until what happened with Father Pierre,” she said.

On Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to Al-Rahi in his weekly address. He noted the word “rahi” means “shepherd” in Arabic, and that Al-Rahi was a “true pastor” who had rushed to help wounded parishioners “without hesitation.”

“May the blood he shed be a seed of peace for beloved Lebanon,” Leo said. “I am close to all the Lebanese people at this time of grave trial.”

Yet what solace those words gave to Qlayaa parishioners was tempered by the confusion felt over Al-Rahi’s killing.

The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said Israeli troops had deployed a drone to “kill a Hezbollah terrorist cell in an a Christian village in south Lebanon,” but did not elaborate on the location.

Residents said the house, near Qlayaa’s outskirts, was owned by a retired schoolteacher and his wife, who were in the kitchen at the time of the attack. The Lebanese army said that the attacks involved two Merkava tank shells and that there was no Hezbollah presence in the area.

“Why hit the first time? OK, why hit again?” said Father Antonius Eid-Farah, the vicar of St. George Parish and aide to Al-Rahi.

Eid-Farah (no relation to Eveline and Najla Farah) echoed what seemed a common sentiment in town, that Al-Rai’s death had only galvanized people’s determination to stay.

The town’s Christians have confidence in their church, he said. And, besides, if they left Qlayaa, where would they go?

“To the streets?” he asked. “How can they provide for their families?”

Yet there was also a sense of frustration among many here, underscoring growing anger not only with Hezbollah but also the Lebanese government for failing to defang the group and stop its ability to wage war. When the head of the Lebanese army arrived at the funeral, some in attendance heckled and refused to let the ceremony proceed until he departed.

“Now he comes? Why is he here rather than protecting us from shells and missiles?” said Chawline Maroun, a 23-year-old student whose home in the nearby village of Kfar Kila was destroyed in the fighting. She has since moved in with family in Qlayaa.

When, she asked, would the Lebanese military actually fight? “When the war is over?” she said.

Maroun said Qlayaa was not only vulnerable to Israeli attacks, but also had been hit by what appeared to be Hezbollah rockets that had misfired or fallen short of their targets.

“We, the Lebanese who don’t want this war, we’re getting hit from both sides here,” she said.

With Israel thrusting deeper into Lebanon, fears are mounting that Qlayaa will suffer the same fate as Alma al-Shaab, a Christian village on the border whose remaining residents all evacuated after a villager was killed this week.

Plans for a buffer zone would see Qlayaa fall under Israeli control — a repeat of its past, when the village was controlled by the South Lebanon Army, a Christian-led militia Israel armed and funded during Israel’s 18-year occupation.

Some would welcome that proposition.