A group of local residents were alarmed by the sound of fighting and assembled at the house of the local mukhtar. Two of the men were armed members of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) and a third was an unarmed member of the group. An Israeli helicopter fired a number of missiles at the group, killing all three LCP militants as well as three unarmed men. According to an assessment by Human Rights Watch the two armed militants were to be considered combatants and therefore legitimate targets. HRW further noted that the two combatants endangered the lives of the civilians by mixing with them. The unarmed men killed in the attack were faulted for mixing with combatants during an Israeli military operation. HRW thus considered them to be collateral casualties to a legitimate Israeli military strike."