BEIRUT: When war last came to the edges of Lebanon’s capital nearly two decades ago, Bilal Sahlab drove his family to a secluded mountain town, rented an apartment and waited out the bombing.
This time around, there’s no car, no rent money, and no sense of when hostilities may end.
Residents of Beirut’s mainly Shiite southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, have been on edge since an Israeli airstrike on their neighborhood last week killed the top military commander of Shiite armed group Hezbollah, along with five civilians.
That same day, the leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas was also assassinated in Tehran. Hezbollah and other allies of Iran have vowed to retaliate against Israel.
Many in Dahiyeh feared the airstrike in their midst signalled that hostilities — playing out for 10 months in parallel to the Gaza war but so far mostly contained to the border area between Lebanon and Israel — were now hitting home.
In the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Israeli strikes flattened buildings in Dahiyeh, sending residents fleeing to other towns and cities for safety.
For Sahlab, that is no longer an option. A five-year economic meltdown has devalued the dollar, cost him his savings, and brought his monthly salary down from more than $5,000 to barely $500.
So he sent his wife and children to live with his in-laws in the mountainous Aley region east of Beirut for their safety, while he stayed in Dahiyeh to keep working.
“It’s safer for them up there,” he told Reuters, breaking down into tears. “I can’t go up because I need to work to contribute to their expenses.”
Taking advantage
Following last week’s strike, residents of Dahiyeh told Reuters that they had begun searching for apartments either in Aley or further east in the Bekaa Valley.
But when demand rose, monthly rent prices in those areas spiked, sometimes reaching $1,000 — far too expensive for those of modest means.
Fatima Seifeddine, 53, found an apartment for $500 a month in the Bekaa. But her monthly salary of just $300 as a university janitor meant it was out of reach.
“Back in 2006, we moved from place to place until we ended up in a hotel hosting displaced families — but there are no options like that now,” she told Reuters by phone.
Even staying with family has become a challenge.
The night of the strike, Majed Zeaiter, a 50-year-old man who drives a van taxi in Dahiyeh, drove his wife and five children more than 50 kilometers (30 miles) north to Afka to stay with his brother’s family in a small apartment.
“The situation scares me... it’s a crisis situation, and when you think about war you’re afraid for your children,” he told Reuters. “The bombing, the war — with every month that passes, the situation gets worse.”
All seven of them slept in one room for the night. But his brother wasn’t earning enough to host them, so early the next morning Zeaiter drove back to Dahiyeh to keep working.
The search for accommodation is complicated by the sectarian enmities and fault lines that still crisscross Lebanon decades after the end of its 1975-90 civil war, making it trickier than in the past for Dahiyeh residents to find shelter.
In 2006, Dahiyeh residents were hosted in some Christian neighborhoods thanks to a Hezbollah alliance with a Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement, sealed months earlier.
But with tensions running high between the two parties this year, and with Hezbollah criticized by other Christian parties who say the Shiite movement unilaterally dragged the country into war, some Shiite families feel less welcome in Christian areas.
One Lebanese man who lives in a mostly Christian part of Beirut said he wanted to bring his grandmother out of Dahiyeh following last week’s Israeli strike, which hit around the corner from her home.
But he said he was worried his neighbors would discriminate against her because she wears a headscarf.
In one case in an area predominantly home to the Druze minority, a displaced Shiite family said they arrived to the apartment they were intending to rent to find town residents, some of them armed, blocking their entry, according to local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.
On social media, some users said Shiite families should not be allowed to rent in areas where other sects live, accusing Shiites of having brought the war upon themselves.
Nasser, a 70-year-old man working as a driver, told Reuters he was keen to leave Dahiyeh with his family but felt both tensions and prices were too high.
“No one’s being empathetic, or understanding that it’s a situation of war and we need to help each other out,” he said.
“Instead, people are taking advantage of each other and eating each other alive.”
As war drums beat, those in Beirut suburb have nowhere to flee
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As war drums beat, those in Beirut suburb have nowhere to flee
- This time around, there’s no car, no rent money, and no sense of when hostilities may end
- On social media, some users said Shiite families should not be allowed to rent in areas where other sects live
UN to add nutrients to second round of Gaza polio vaccinations
- The first round of the polio vaccination campaign, which began on Sept. 1, reached its target of 90 percent of children under 10 years of age
UNITED NATIONS: The second round of a vaccination campaign to protect 640,000 children in Gaza against polio will also deliver micronutrients — essential vitamins and minerals — and conduct nutritional screening, a senior UN Children’s Fund official said.
Discussions are also underway about the feasibility of adding further vaccinations to the campaign, including a measles immunization, said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director for humanitarian action and supply operations.
“There are over 44,000 children born in the last year and who haven’t received their basic immunization,” he said on Thursday.
The first round of the polio vaccination campaign, which began on Sept. 1, reached its target of 90 percent of children under 10 years of age, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Monday.
It was carried out in phases over two weeks during humanitarian pauses in the fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas. A second round of the polio vaccinations has to be carried out within four weeks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed last month that a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
A high risk of famine persists across Gaza as long as the war continues and humanitarian access is restricted, according to an assessment by a global hunger monitor published in June.
“In the same way that we’ve been able to reach all children with polio vaccines, we need to move and use the same modality to reach children with their basic vaccines, with some of the nutrition and hygiene interventions that are essential to save their lives,” Chaiban told reporters after visiting Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.
“Those are lifesaving interventions and the parties have shown that they can line up when necessary. It needs to happen again,” he said.
Blinken urges against ‘escalatory actions’ in Mideast
- France, US are united in calling for restraint and urging de-escalation when it comes to Middle East in general and when it comes to Lebanon in particular: Blinken
PARIS: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Thursday urged against “escalatory actions by any party” in the Middle East, following the explosions of devices of Lebanese group Hezbollah blamed on Israel.
“France and the United States are united in calling for restraint and urging de-escalation when it comes to the Middle East in general and when it comes to Lebanon in particular,” Blinken said after talks in Paris with his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne.
Blinken said this was especially important at a time when the international community was continuing work to agree a ceasefire in Gaza to end the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“We continue to work to get a ceasefire for Gaza over the finish line... We believe that remains both possible and necessary. But meanwhile we don’t want to see any escalatory actions by any party that makes that more difficult,” Blinken said.
Sejourne, making one of his final public appearances ahead of a cabinet reshuffle that will see him sent to Brussels as France’s new EU commissioner, said both France and the United States were “very worried about the situation” in the Middle East.
He said both the United States and France were coordinating to “send messages of de-escalation” to the parties.
“Lebanon would not recover from a total war,” he said.
Fears of a major war on Israel’s northern border have increased after thousands of Hezbollah operatives’ communication devices exploded across Lebanon, killing 37 people and wounding nearly 3,000 more across two days.
Israeli planes bomb southern Lebanon after radio blasts
- Attacks on Hezbollah's communications equipment killed 37, wounded around 3,000 in past two days
- Israel says its conflict with Hezbollah, like war in Gaza, is part of a wider regional confrontation with Iran
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel bombed southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had thwarted an Iranian-led assassination plot after explosions in booby-trapped radios and pagers in the past two days caused bloody havoc in the ranks of its arch-foe Hezbollah.
The attacks on Hezbollah’s communications equipment killed 37 people and wounded around 3,000, raising fears that a full-blown war was imminent. The action also sowed disarray across Lebanon as panicked residents abandoned their mobile phones.
“This isn’t a small matter, it’s war. Who can even secure their phone now? When I heard about what happened yesterday, I left my phone on my motorcycle and walked away,” said Mustafa Sibal on a street in Beirut.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied being behind the attacks but multiple security sources have said they were carried out by its spy agency Mossad.
The Lebanese army said on Thursday it was blowing up pagers and suspicious telecom devices in controlled blasts in different areas. It called on citizens to report any suspicious devices.
Lebanese authorities banned walkie-talkies and pagers from being taken on flights from Beirut airport until further notice, the National News Agency reported. Such devices were also banned from being shipped by air.
In Beirut on Thursday, a distant roar in the skies could be heard from what state media said was Israeli warplanes breaking the sound barrier — a noise that has become common in recent months.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on the day after the Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas which triggered the Gaza war, and since then constant exchanges of fire have occurred, although neither side has allowed this to escalate into a full-scale war.
Israel said its warplanes struck villages in southern Lebanon overnight, and a security source and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV reported airstrikes near the border began again on Thursday just after midday.
Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south.
The previous day, hundreds of pagers — used by Hezbollah to evade mobile phone surveillance — exploded at once, killing 12 people including two children, and injuring more than 2,300.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the United Nations Security Council to take a firm stand to stop what he called Israel’s “aggression” and “technological war” against his country.
Israel says its conflict with Hezbollah, like its war in Gaza against Hamas, is part of a wider regional confrontation with Iran, which sponsors both groups as well as armed movements in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Assassination plot
Also on Thursday, Israeli security forces said that an Israeli businessman had been arrested last month after attending at least two meetings in Iran where he discussed assassinating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defense minister or the head of the Shin Bet spy agency.
Last week, Shin Bet uncovered what it said was a plot by Hezbollah to assassinate former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.
Israel has been accused of assassinations including a blast in Tehran that killed the leader of Hamas and another in a Beirut suburb that killed a senior Hezbollah commander within hours of each other in July.
Despite the events of the past few days, a spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon said the situation along the frontier had “not changed much in terms of exchanges of fire between the parties.”
“There was an intensification last week. This week it is more or less the same. There are still exchanges of fire. It is still worrying, still concerning, and the rhetoric is high,” the spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti, said.
Tens of thousands of people have had to flee the Israel-Lebanon border area on both sides since the hostilities began in October.
Shifting focus
The Israeli military said its overnight air strikes hit Hezbollah targets in Chihine, Tayibe, Blida, Meiss El Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela in southern Lebanon, as well as a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Khiam.
On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the war was moving into a new phase, with more resources and military units being shifted to the northern border.
According to Israeli officials, the forces being deployed there include the 98th Division, an elite formation including commando and paratrooper elements that has been fighting in Gaza.
Hezbollah chief says group suffered ‘major’ blow in device blasts
- Nasrallah struck a defiant tone, warning that Israel would receive “just punishment” for the attacks
- Describing the attacks as a possible “act of war,” he said Israel would face “tough retribution and just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not“
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Thursday his powerful group had suffered an “unprecedented” blow when thousands of operatives’ communication devices exploded in attacks it blamed on Israel.
Israel has not commented on the attacks that killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 across Lebanon over two days but has said it will widen the scope of its war in Gaza to include the Lebanon front.
Delivering a speech after the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, which plunged Lebanon into panic, Nasrallah struck a defiant tone, warning that Israel would receive “just punishment” for the attacks.
Describing the attacks as a possible “act of war,” he said Israel would face “tough retribution and just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not.”
“It could be a war crime or a declaration of war,” he said of the attacks, which he branded a “massacre.”
Nasrallah also vowed to keep up Hezbollah’s fight against Israel until a ceasefire in Gaza is reached.
“The Lebanese front will not stop until the aggression on Gaza stops” despite “all this blood spilt,” he said.
Nasrallah addressed Israeli officials’ promises to return thousands of Israelis displaced by exchanges of fire across the border with Lebanon to their homes.
“You will not be able to return the people of the north to the north,” he said, warning that “no military escalation, no killings, no assassinations and no all-out war can return residents to the border.”
Hezbollah is an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, which on October 7 launched an unprecedented attack on Israel that sparked Gaza’s deadliest ever war.
Up until now, the focus of Israel’s firepower had been on Gaza.
But Israel’s northern border with Lebanon has seen exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants almost every day since October.
The violence has killed hundreds of people, mostly fighters, on the Lebanese side, and dozens on the Israeli side.
Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over Beirut as Nasrallah spoke, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said, with AFP correspondents in Beirut reporting loud booms.
Nasrallah announced the launch of an internal probe into the attacks, which experts and some Israeli media have said bear all the hallmarks of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
EU’s Borrell says Lebanon attacks aimed to ‘spread terror’
- “The indiscriminate method used is unacceptable due to the inevitable and heavy collateral damages among civilians,” Borrell said
- At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded
BEIRUT: The EU foreign policy chief condemned attacks which targeted mobile communication devices used by Hezbollah this week, saying whoever was behind them aimed “to spread terror in Lebanon,” a statement from the EU’s Beirut delegation said on Thursday.
“The indiscriminate method used is unacceptable due to the inevitable and heavy collateral damages among civilians, and the broader consequences for the entire population, including fear and terror, and the collapse of hospitals,” Josep Borrell said.
At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded when first pagers, then walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded in two waves of attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel carried out the attack. Israel has not claimed responsibility.
Hezbollah, a heavily armed group backed by Iran, and Israel have been trading fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border for almost a year in a conflict triggered by the Gaza war.
