By Catholics for Catholics
Fr. Pierre Al Rahi, a Catholic priest serving the parish of St. George in the Maronite village of Qlayaa, Lebanon, was killed Monday morning as a result of wounds from an IDF strike. Israel had previously ordered an evacuation of the area, but according to AsiaNews, Fr. Pierre and many others refused to leave. Information is limited, but it appears that the IDF fired two artillery shells into Qlayaa, and Fr. Pierre was killed by the second.
It seems that the first hit a home owned by a couple, and it was unclear if Fr. Pierre was already in that house for the first explosion. After the first shell hit, however, residents rushed to the house to try to evacuate the wounded. It is possible that Fr. Pierre was in this group. Regardless, it was when the second shell exploded that Fr. Pierre was grievously wounded and later succumbed to his injuries.
The later IDF claimed that they successfully hit a Hezbollah cell in southern Lebanon without specifically naming Qlayaa, leading to some reports that appear false which indicate that Fr. Pierre was possibly trying to remove Hezbollah insurgents from the area or that a Hezbollah cell was the target. The mayor of Qlayaa, Hanna Daher, told the French publication Lorient-Le Jour that he does not know why the village was targeted:
“We don’t know why our village was targeted. The targeting is unclear. Qlayaa is a safe area,” he declared. According to him, the house that was hit is located at the eastern edge of the village. “We first heard an explosion, then the residents saw smoke rising from a house to the east, and everyone rushed to the scene,” he recounted.
“Upon our arrival, we found that the house had been hit by artillery fire and that there were wounded people inside,” he continued. “While we were trying to evacuate the wounded, a second shell exploded inside the house. We narrowly escaped a massacre, as there were many of us there. Despite this, several people were wounded, including Father Pierre el-Raï, who succumbed to his injuries.”
Pray for Maronite Father Pierre al-Rahi who killed today by Israeli tank fire in Southern Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/u7sZgNuZAM
— Catholics for Catholics 🇺🇲 (@CforCatholics) March 9, 2026
Daher also emphatically denied reports that Hezbollah had infiltrated the area. According to Lorient-Le Jour, Daher rejected the claims, saying,
“They say there were groups in the house, but that’s false. It’s lies. There were only the residents of the house and people from the village who came to help the wounded…We are peaceful people and we don’t harm anyone. All we ask is to be able to stay in our home in peace.”
According to the French publication, Daher also said, “We will stay here and we will not leave. We don’t know if there is a plan to relocate us, but we will remain on our land and we will not leave it.”
Many Christians across southern Lebanon find themselves caught in the middle of Hezbollah, which has long harassed the country, and the IDF.
According to the National Catholic Register, residents in the town of Alma al-Shaab rang the church bells at Our Lady’s Church in an act of defiance against evacuation orders, choosing to remain in the village.
Charbel Sayyah, a native of Alma al-Shaab, begged the government of Lebanon to protect their town and declare it a military-free zone. He told the media outlet ACI MENA, “We do not want weapons, and most people here do not even know how to use them. But we cannot be left like this… We will not accept for someone [Hezbollah] to launch rockets from our land, or for an Israeli soldier to provoke us, like when the Star of David was drawn on the Church of Our Lady. We cannot relive the same story every time. This is our town, and we want to remain in it.”
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