
Barricades set up on Jamous Street in the minutes following a heavy Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sept. 20, 2024. (Credit: Joao Sousa/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — L'Orient Today's journalist Ghadir Hamadi had just left a doctor's appointment and was driving down Jamous Street, in the al-Qaem neighborhood of Beirut's southern suburbs, when she heard three loud explosions. "I felt a kind of pressure that is distinctive to an airstrike," she says. "You will unfortunately only know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever been near a bombing."
People rushed about, running and screaming. "Men, who I assumed are Hezbollah members, seemed to suddenly appear out of thin air," she recalls, "and started telling people to go home."
These men banged on the hoods and trunks of cars stopped on the street, demanding that they move and make space for ambulances and Civil Defense vehicles — which were on the scene almost immediately.
"For your safety, go home!" a man on the street screamed at everyone and no one in particular.
"I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience," Hamadi says. "I’ve never been so physically close to such a thing."
Sirens filled the air; two hours later, the streets are almost empty of cars and motorcycles. People can be seen leaving their houses, large suitcases and crying children in tow.
A 9-year-old girl holding a kitten in her arms announces, "I'm leaving the southern suburbs with my cat until further notice," then carries on with her family.
Sara Farhat sighs over the phone. "I heard the noise of the planes, a huge noise that tore the sky apart. I also heard a very deep sound, but at first, I thought it was something other than a strike, it was so heavy." The 31-year-old is still in shock as she recalls the screaming of voices and sirens intermingled.
Witnesses heard three explosions. Later reports say four missiles were used, targeting the underground parking garage where commanders from an elite unit of Hezbollah were meeting.
Around an hour later, two of the buildings at the site of the strike collapsed. Israel claimed responsibility for the attack almost immediately and then later in the evening the Israeli army's spokesperson announced that the strike had eliminated Ibrahim Aqil, a high-ranking Hezbollah military commander, thought to be a member of its highest military body, the Jihad Council.
"My phone rang several times and I knew something was happening," Farhat says. "You can't absorb the emotional shocks you go through, but the anger builds up inside you.
"If [Israel] thinks they're going to silence us like this, they're wrong. They're only making us angrier."
Twelve-year-old Hanane Achkar was in a bookshop down the street, near al-Qaem Mosque, buying a notebook. The airstrike shook the shop, and the shop owner told her to run home, "which I did."
Her math exams were the next day and she needed supplies. "I hope the exam is canceled tomorrow," she says. "I don't have the courage to take it. I think I've forgotten everything I've learned."
At least 14 people have been killed according to the death toll announced by the Health Ministry around 10 p.m. Beirut time. At least 66 people were injured.
This is the third such strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut since the Gaza war began and Hezbollah opened a front with Israel in support of its ally, Hamas. The three assassinations, all claimed by Israel, have targeted high-ranking figures from both groups.
The first, on Jan. 2, killed Saleh al-Arouri, deputy political leader of Hamas, and claimed six other victims. The second, on July 30, killed Fouad Shukur, a top military commander in Hezbollah, two children and three women. This third strike targeted Ibrahim Aqil, another high-ranking military commander in Hezbollah. The Israeli army claims the assassination was successful and Akil was "eliminated," alongside 10 other Hezbollah commanders.
At the emergency gates
At Saint Therese Medical Center in Hadath, the neighborhood next to Haret Hreik, an injured father, blood on his clothes, is on his way out. He is looking for his 4-year-old son who is missing. They were in the building that was struck four times in the Israeli attack. With tears in his eyes, he takes off for another hospital to try to find his son — no luck here.
The director of the nursing department at Saint Therese, Rita Suleiman, tells L'Orient Today that they had received 20 wounded, five in critical condition. One of their patients required surgery to amputate their leg. Two of the wounded are children, one whose mother was killed in the strike.
Most of the injuries are head trauma, Suleiman says, and the hospital is already overwhelmed with patients who are still being treated for injuries sustained in the Tuesday and Wednesday pager and walkie-talkie attacks. Staff are working double shifts to keep up with the patients' needs.
At the gate to the medical center's emergency ward, Fatima Bangura is standing alone, bandages around her hands, and wounds on her head and arms. The 24-year-old woman from Ethiopia is a domestic worker and had been home alone at the time of the strike, cooking for the family she works for. The explosions hit the building next to her, in three loud booms. When she went to leave the third-floor apartment, the stairs going down were gone. She climbed through the rubble and finally arrived downstairs, where an ambulance picked her up.
Now she's just waiting; her phone has no internet connection and it seems there's no one around to help her.
Suddenly an all-terrain vehicle (quad bike) pulls up to the emergency gate. There's a wounded man on a stretcher, but it's nearly impossible to see him — he's surrounded by six men all shouting, frantically unloading him and rushing him through the doors.