Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs on Nov. 21, 2024 (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient Today)
“There isn’t a soul on the streets,” cried out a woman who identified herself as Oum Moustafa (Moustafa’s mom), a resident of Serop, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Saida in southern Lebanon.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, around 3 a.m., several residents in her area received phone calls urging them to leave their homes.
“You are located near Hezbollah facilities. For your safety, you must evacuate immediately and move at least 500 meters away,” a voice warned in a recording that circulated on WhatsApp groups. The message echoed the frequent evacuation warnings issued by Avichay Adraee, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli army.
Residents from various southern areas, including Sour, Ain al-Hilweh, Maghdouche and Anqoun, as well as areas in the Chouf such as Barja and even neighborhoods in Beirut, reported receiving similar calls on Thursday
It later emerged that the evacuation messages were pre-recorded and sent randomly to residents in these regions. The origin of the calls remains unclear, according to L’Orient Today’s correspondent.
When contacted, a security source was unable to provide further details but confirmed that an investigation is underway. “Most of the calls received are from abroad,” another security source assured, stressing that the messages were not legitimate evacuation orders.
“We are coordinating with [the public telecom provider] Ogero to block these calls and most of the time, we succeed,” said a source. In a video showcasing one of these calls, the telephone code “007,” associated with Russia, appeared as the origin number.
Serop, near Saida, half-empty
At first, Oum Moustafa thought it was a “prank.” Displaced individuals housed in a nearby school received similar calls around 3:15 a.m. “Then, they called residents of a building near mine,” recounted the shopkeeper.
Initially, she decided to stay home, but gunfire from a car urging residents to evacuate changed her mind.
“My mother has a fractured leg, and I was scared for her. With my daughters and their children, we decided to stay with relatives a few minutes away,” she explained. According to the 50-year-old mother, half of Serop’s residents left their homes that night. Some spent the night in their cars.
By 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Oum Moustafa had returned home without her mother. “I preferred she stay at my brother’s place since she can’t walk, and you never know what might happen. But, I’m no longer afraid. It’s psychological warfare,” she declared.
‘Playing with our nerves’
Around 3 a.m., residents of Barja in Chouf were awakened by similar calls. “I immediately knew it was a lie, aimed at playing with our nerves,” said Hassan Saad, the head of the municipality.
However, some residents evacuated their homes. A few even spent the night outside on the village square or the streets.
Barja has already been bombed twice since the start of the war. The latest strike, on Nov. 5, killed 20 people and injured 10 others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
By 4 a.m., residents had returned to their homes. “Today, everything is back to normal,” Saad assured
In Maghdouche, eight kilometers southeast of Saida, the church bells rang in the middle of the night to wake up the residents, some of whom also received the suspicious call, confirmed Fouad Hanna, a municipal employee.
“The bells were rung to inform people of the calls so they could decide for themselves whether to evacuate,” he explained. “Some were frightened and left. We didn’t know if the calls were serious,” Hanna added, emphasizing that his village contained “no military infrastructure.”
By 5 a.m., residents had returned to their homes. “Everything is normal,” he said.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient Le-Jour.