Displaced residents in the streets of Beirut, September 28, 2024, following the strikes. Photo credit: Mohammad Yassine / L'Orient-Le Jour
Since last Monday, and the massive Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon and the Bekaa, more than a hundred thousand inhabitants of these regions have had to flee. Friday evening, a new exodus, in panic and terror, from the southern suburbs of Beirut, as Israel bombed it with an intensity unmatched since the start of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.
Early in the morning, in various Beirut neighborhoods, families dazed and shocked from having to run from their homes in the middle of the night, were waiting to see what they should do next. Because — as an old man and his wife sitting on a sidewalk in Saifi, downtown Beirut, said — "No one is helping us. The state is nowhere to be found."
Many people spent the night outside, the sound of Israeli jets dropping bomb after bomb on the southern suburbs booming through the tense darkness. In Martyrs' Square, in downtown Beirut, on the Corniche or the beach of Ramlet al-Baida, they waited.
"We took our grandchildren to Batroun, then came back here... We have nowhere to go," says a woman who fled the Burj al-Barajneh camp in the southern suburbs. "We saw the strikes and thought we were going to die. We saw everything," she says from Saifi, in downtown Beirut, where she found refuge.
For many refugees, the bombings of last night echo the trauma of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. During the one month of fighting, the southern suburbs of Beirut were razed to the ground by Israeli jets.
But for one woman, who does not wish to give her name and says she has no political affiliation, the "ten strikes" that hit Hezbollah's headquarters in the suburbs on Friday around 6:30 p.m. were much more intense than those of the 2006 war.
"We have to flee," she says. "We won't go back there again," exclaims this woman, originally from southern Lebanon. "The price of this war is much too high."
Her daughter, newly married, speaks up. "What happened yesterday was like the images we saw of Gaza. This war must end," she insists.
Just as in Gaza, the Israeli army also issued multiple warnings last night, calling for the inhabitants of certain neighborhoods to evacuate ahead of further attacks. This was followed by a rush of desperation to escape as people fled on foot, by car, on motorcycle from their homes in a neighborhood that, within two hours, once again came under attack.
Displaced by the strikes, in the streets of Beirut, September 28, 2024. Photo credit: Mohammad Yassine / L'Orient-Le Jour
Mohammad Jomaa is sitting on a sidewalk in the Sanayeh neighborhood. He arrived there after walking about ten kilometers from his neighborhood of Laylakeh, in the southern suburbs. This area was one of those identified by the Israeli army as housing "Hezbollah weapons," which the party denied, and for which evacuation orders had been issued.
"I don't know where to go," he says. Not far from there, dozens of families have set up tents and makeshift shelters around the garden.
In the back of a van, a child sleeps on an improvised mattress. His parents, in the front seats, are glued to their phones. Since dawn, people have been driving back and forth along these streets, looking for shelter. A car passes by, with a small bird in a cage perched on the passenger's seat.
Displaced by the strikes, in the streets of Beirut on September 28, 2024. Photo credit: Mohammad Yassine / L'Orient-Le Jour
On the sidewalks of downtown, some families have luggage, some have nothing. The evacuation was too rushed. It's Saturday morning and, sitting on sheets on one of these sidewalks, members of a family from Bir Hassan are eating manakish distributed by volunteers.
"We fled after the first Israeli strike on the southern suburbs, which took place around 6:30 p.m. Since then we've been on the street. We didn't take anything with us," the mother says. "We don't know where we're going to sleep tonight."
Her husband stayed at the house until 4 a.m. "They were bombing," he recounts. "Everyone was screaming in the neighborhood."
"In July 2006, we fled to Syria. But the bombings last night were worse than those of 2006."
Displaced by the strikes, in the streets of Beirut on September 28, 2024. Photo credit: Mohammad Yassine / L'Orient-Le Jour
For another man who fled the suburbs, the bombings he experienced before he made it out reminded him of the Israeli invasion in 1982.
Sitting on the concrete of Martyrs' Square, he says, "They told us to evacuate as if we were animals. But every time we fled, new bombs fell on us."
It was 2:30 a.m. before he was able to escape, eight hours after the initial strike that shook the capital and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. But this news isn't out yet.
"It doesn't matter if the Sayyed [Nasrallah] died a martyr," the man says. "God willed it. Israel has no respect. We will crush them, we will be victorious."
In the morning, a source close to Hezbollah told AFP that "contact had been lost" with the party's secretary-general since the evening before. Around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, Hezbollah officially announced Nasrallah was dead.
Displaced by the strikes, in the streets of Beirut on Sept. 28, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today)
Among the flow of refugees scattered around Beirut and the country, there are also many people originally from Syria. A young woman from Aleppo only had time to grab a few clothes and a gas stove before escaping.
"We fled as soon as the first strike on the southern suburbs," she says. "We were completely terrified. We don't know what we're going to do. No one helps Syrians and we are afraid that the war will develop further."
