In Ouzai, view of the damage caused by violent Israeli strikes, Nov. 7, 2024. (Credit: Mohammed Yassin/Reuters)
Israeli evacuation orders sent waves of people fleeing from Haret Hreik, Hadath, Tahwitat al-Ghadir and most notably, Ouzai, a neighborhood near Beirut airport. sent waves of people fleeing, with Ouzai, near the airport, seeing the heaviest movement.
Since the intensification of Israeli airstrikes in late September, the neighborhoods of Hadath and Haret Hreik, some of the most targeted areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs, have been almost completely emptied, which is less so the case for other neighborhoods.
Samer Yaacoub, head of the Beirut governorate’s crisis cell, told L'Orient-Le Jour that most Ouzai residents who evacuated on Wednesday went to Ramlet al-Baida beach to wait for the airstrikes to subside before returning home. According to him, the shelters set up by the authorities to accommodate the displaced had already reached full capacity.
On social media, videos show a chaotic exodus from the area, with cars and motorcycles pushing through the streets, horns blaring nonstop. One video shows traffic being cleared in both directions, allowing drivers to leave the soon-to-be targeted neighborhood.
‘Death has become a matter of luck’
In another video, a man filming the cars leaving Ouzai says, "We will be victorious, labbayka Nasrallah [we heed your call]. No one will make us bend," referring to the former leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in late September by a massive Israeli strike on Haret Hreik..
"Once they issued the evacuation orders, we jumped in the car and fled," Ouzai resident Malak Aqil told AFPTV. “It's becoming a routine. We had to flee our homes several times. Sometimes we sleep in the car ... death has become a matter of luck — you either survive or you don’t," added Ramzi Zaiter, a resident of the southern suburbs.
At least ten strikes were reported in two waves of bombings on Wednesday night, including one very powerful blast near the Beirut international airport. Evacuation orders concerning a second wave of strikes were announced around 11:40 p.m. on the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee’s X account. The strike in Tahwitat al-Ghadir, one of the four areas targeted after midnight, caused a fire at a gas station, according to local media.
