A superposition of two views of Beirut's southern suburbs: (1) the still of early morning on Thursday, March 5, 2026; (2) After a first wave of strikes in the evening of Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Credit (1) and (2): Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Yesterday, at around 2:30 p.m. local time, the Israeli army issued an unprecedented evacuation order for all of Beirut’s southern suburbs, or Dahieh, as locals refer to it. A few hours later, a similar one followed for the Bekaa Valley.The night before, one for the entire South. Not a street, not a building, but the entire area. An estimated half-a-million to 700,000 people were told to leave, the equivalent of uprooting all of administrative Lisbon or Portland at once. The aftermath A night from hell in Beirut's southern suburbs, southern Lebanon and Bekaa For eight hours between the order and the first airstrikes, Lebanese people worldwide were trapped in the same strange waiting room: refreshing feeds, sending messages, piecing together fragments of videos and screenshots, watching the city evacuate in real time.Then, around 11...
Yesterday, at around 2:30 p.m. local time, the Israeli army issued an unprecedented evacuation order for all of Beirut’s southern suburbs, or Dahieh, as locals refer to it. A few hours later, a similar one followed for the Bekaa Valley.The night before, one for the entire South. Not a street, not a building, but the entire area. An estimated half-a-million to 700,000 people were told to leave, the equivalent of uprooting all of administrative Lisbon or Portland at once. The aftermath A night from hell in Beirut's southern suburbs, southern Lebanon and Bekaa For eight hours between the order and the first airstrikes, Lebanese people worldwide were trapped in the same strange waiting room: refreshing feeds, sending messages, piecing together fragments of videos and screenshots, watching the city evacuate in real time.Then, around...
