Smoke was still rising from the southern suburb of Beirut on Saturday morning, visible to many families who had fled their homes there the night before to escape a massive Israeli bombing.
It was a terrible night – out in the middle of horrific explosions, searching in vain for a place in one of the overcrowded schools turned into bomb shelters. By morning, hundreds of families were sleeping in public squares, on beaches or in cars around Beirut.
People inspect a damaged building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Choueifat, southeast of Beirut, Saturday, September 28, 2024.
AFP Photos/Hussein Al-Mulla
Lines of people headed to the mountains overlooking the Lebanese capital, carrying infants and some of their possessions.
Overnight, Israel launched a series of strikes on different parts of Dahiya, a group of Shiite-majority suburbs on the southern edge of Beirut where tens of thousands of residents live. The largest explosions Beirut has seen in nearly a year of conflict led to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.
The attack was part of a rapid escalation of Israeli strikes last week that killed more than 700 people in Lebanon. Israel pledged to paralyze Hezbollah and end 11 months of fire on Israeli territory in what Nasrallah described as a “front of support” for its ally Hamas in Gaza.
The new displaced people swell the numbers Beirut can absorb
The people who fled the chaos that occurred on Friday night joined tens of thousands who fled to Beirut and other areas in southern Lebanon last week to escape Israeli bombing.
For many residents of the suburb, forced evictions were disturbingly familiar.
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Some of them were Lebanese who lived through the painful month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, when Israel flattened large parts of Beirut’s suburbs. The others were Syrians who had taken refuge in their country to escape the long civil war.
Fatima Shaheen, a Syrian refugee, sleeps on Ramlet El Bayda public beach in Beirut with her family and hundreds of strangers. The night before, she, her husband and their two children had ridden a motorcycle and sped out of the suburb, “bombing below us and striking above us.”
“Thank God, no one was hurt,” she said.
People who fled the southern suburbs of Beirut amid ongoing Israeli air strikes, sit in a park in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, September 28, 2024.
AFP Photos/Hussein Al-Mulla
The government opened schools in Beirut to accommodate the displaced. But Syrians reported that some sites refuse to receive them because they reserve the few spaces for Lebanese. Shaheen said her family came directly to the beach.
“We just want a place where our children won’t be afraid,” she said. “We fled the war in Syria in 2011 because of the children and came here, and now the same thing is happening again.”
Since Monday, about 22,331 Syrians in Lebanon have crossed into Syria, along with 22,117 Lebanese, according to the Lebanese authorities.
Shaheen said that returning is not an option for her family; She is from an opposition area and therefore may face reprisals from the Syrian government.
On the beach, the displaced were spread out on the sidewalk or in cars parked on the sidewalk. Others camped at beach temples or on blankets in the sand.
Talal Ahmed Jassaf, a Lebanese man who was sleeping on the beach with his family, said: “We spent more than three hours moving between schools and shelters and did not find one with a room.” He said he was thinking of going to relatively safe Syria. But he is concerned about air strikes on the road between Beirut and Damascus.
Some people are left without help
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the escalation that occurred this week led to a doubling of the number of displaced people due to the conflict in Lebanon. She added that there are now more than 211,000 displaced people, including some humanitarian workers who must respond to the crisis. She added that about 85,000 of them are sleeping in shelters.
He added, “Humanitarian capabilities to respond have been severely exhausted.”
Displaced people sleeping outside in Beirut largely told The Associated Press that they have not received help from any humanitarian organization.
Families sit on the ground in Martyrs’ Square after fleeing Israeli air strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, Saturday, September 28, 2024.
AFP Photos/Bilal Hussein
A stadium in the coastal neighborhood of Al-Manara, owned by Al-Najma Football Club, opened its doors to displaced people who spent the night sleeping on the stands.
Among them was Maryam Darwish, her husband, and her five children. She fled her home in the suburb earlier in the week when the first Israeli raids hit.
Darwish said they got water from the soccer club, but no organization brought food, blankets or other supplies.
“People help each other out, family and friends get things for each other,” she said.
She and her husband fled during the 2006 war, when their eldest son was an infant, and returned to their home when the war ended. She said they hope their house is still standing to return to this time.
“We are worried about our children and schools, and that they will lose their future,” she said. “What can we do? We can only say thank God.”
She added: “The resistance is victorious.” At the time of the interview, Hezbollah had not yet confirmed Nasrallah’s death.
Despite their difficult circumstances, others also spoke in a defiant tone.
Jamal Hussein fled the suburb at 3 a.m. with his extended family amidst constant bombardment and spent the night sleeping on a seaside promenade in the upscale Ain al-Mreisseh area of Beirut.
“Of course we are not afraid for ourselves, but we have children,” he said. We are steadfast and ready to sacrifice more than this.”
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
