Displaced people forced to sleep on the streets in Beirut. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Um Mohamed has been sleeping for two days on a sheet of polyethylene foam next to her youngest daughter Siham, 11, and her elder son Mohamed, 29, on a sidewalk in Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut. “When people come by car to hand out sandwiches, everyone rushes over. My mother cannot walk because of her back, Siham is little and I can’t squeeze through in time,” he said at 11 a.m. on Sunday, his stomach still empty. Martyrs’ Square has rarely been so aptly named: Since fleeing Beirut’s southern suburb on Friday under the Israeli bombardment that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and dozens of other people, according to various estimates, many families have set up makeshift camps along the esplanade, some in the shade of a tree, others stretching out a sheet with a piece of wood to protect themselves from the sun. A car pulled up...
Um Mohamed has been sleeping for two days on a sheet of polyethylene foam next to her youngest daughter Siham, 11, and her elder son Mohamed, 29, on a sidewalk in Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut. “When people come by car to hand out sandwiches, everyone rushes over. My mother cannot walk because of her back, Siham is little and I can’t squeeze through in time,” he said at 11 a.m. on Sunday, his stomach still empty. Martyrs’ Square has rarely been so aptly named: Since fleeing Beirut’s southern suburb on Friday under the Israeli bombardment that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and dozens of other people, according to various estimates, many families have set up makeshift camps along the esplanade, some in the shade of a tree, others stretching out a sheet with a piece of wood to protect themselves from the sun. A...
