Hundreds leave Sabra and Shatila amid fears of direct targeting | Dahiyeh sees another night of relentless bombing | Hezbollah attacks military site in Haifa with drone swarm

Saturday night saw some of the most violent bombing in Beirut since Israel began its assault on Lebanon two weeks ago, during which over a thousand people were killed and over a million people from the south were displaced, now struggling to make ends meet in undersupplied government shelters, out of the backs of their cars, or in the streets and beaches of Lebanon. 

The displacement entered a new phase on Saturday night, when hundreds of Palestinian refugees fled Sabra and Shatila after shrapnel from successive rockets fired to the west of the camp reached its perimeter.

A Palestinian source from the Fatah movement in Lebanon told Mada Masr that more than 200 people, most of them women, elderly and children, took refuge in other areas of Beirut, including the Ain al-Mreisseh and Raoucheh areas, whose long corniche has become a place of refuge for hundreds of displaced Lebanese and Syrians.

This displacement happened as Israel hammered the south of Beirut on Saturday night.

Shortly before 11 pm, Israel’s military began to issue evacuation orders for residents of various areas of Beirut’s southern suburbs, including specific buildings in Borj al-Brajneh. Just half an hour later, beginning with a missile strike on Choueifat, Israel launched a series of over 30 airstrikes that continued until around 4 am on areas across Dahiyeh, including the International Airport Road, where images circulated in Lebanese media showed rubble strewn across the surface of the tarmac.

Sabra and Shatila — located in the Ghobeiry municipality of southern Beirut  — houses at least 14,000 people, most of whom are Lebanese Shiaa, Palestinians and Syrians.

Flying shrapnel or panic from the sounds were not the driving force behind last night’s wave of displacement, the Fatah source said, explaining that the camp’s residents have become accustomed to such violence since the beginning of the war. Rather, security officials in Sabra and Shatila have received information indicating that Israel may conduct a major strike on the camp to kill residents under the pretext of striking Hamas, its officials and Hezbollah, according to the source.

Israel has conducted at least three targeted attacks on Palestinians in Lebanon since the aggression escalated in recent weeks.

In the first attack on Tripoli in the Northern Lebanon Governorate, Israel bombed the fifth floor of a residential building in the Palestinian Beddawi camp in northern Tripoli on Saturday, killing Hamas leader Saeed Atallah Ali along with his wife and two children. Ali was a leader in the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

On October 1, Israel targeted a residential building in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Saida, claiming to aim for Mounir Maqdah, the commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement's military wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

At the end of September, Israel killed four people in a strike on the Cola neighborhood of Beirut, including three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP): Imad Audi, the group's military leader in Lebanon, Mohamed Abdel Aal, a member of the political bureau, and Abdel Rahman Abdel Aal, a member of the party.

While the displacement from Sabra and Shatila is still limited, the Fatah source said he believes that more residents will make their way to Beirut’s beaches in the coming days.

Faiza Kayed, a resident of Sabra camp, told Mada Masr that she lived through the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982 — when Israel allowed Christian militias into the camp to kill thousands of Lebanese Shiaa and Palestinians — later fleeing the camp again in 2006 with her children, and again today, with her grandchildren.

“History repeats itself. I remember that I fled with my family in 1982 in a truck that took us from Sabra to the Basta al-Fawqa area in Beirut to escape the massacres. In 2006, I fled with my husband and children to the town of Barja in the Chouf. Today, we are fleeing with my grandchildren to Beirut. Death is chasing us from Palestine to here.”

Mostafa Khazal, a father of four, says that he and his family fled in the early hours of Sunday morning because they are “certain that the Zionists want to kill us just because we are Palestinians. They realize that there are no weapons inside the camps, but under the pretext of striking weapons depots, they strike Lebanon. This is their policy.”

“The problem is that the women with us — some of whom are pregnant — we do not know what to do with them, and no one can help us because everyone is in this disaster. They told us that it is difficult to find mattresses. There is a mattress crisis. We sleep on the floor in every sense of the word,” Khazal says.

Fatima al-Eissa, who decided to leave Shatila camp last night, has to look after her disabled mother and her five children between the ages of 10 and 18 alone, as her husband died several months ago.

But more than carrying the weight of looking after her mother and children, Fatima is concerned about the conditions the family will find themselves in upon venturing into displacement.

“It is enough that women cannot find a place to relieve themselves, just think about this point, not to mention the other calamities. Where do we relieve ourselves when there are hundreds and hundreds of people on the streets? Ain al-Mreisseh and Raoucheh have been transformed into a pen because there is no place to go to the bathroom except here. This is in addition to the fact that we can catch many diseases and germs from the lack of bathing. We cannot shower. We have become like people in Gaza. We go to the sea to wash ourselves, but is it safe to wash ourselves with sea water? No one helps us because the whole country is affected. We are finished.”

Difficult conditions are already affecting several displaced communities. 

On Saturday, about 50 displaced people who are sheltering in Tripoli schools and mosques suffered severe food poisoning, a Health Ministry source told Mada Masr. Medical and emergency teams affiliated with the Manhaj Charitable Association cooperated with the Lebanese Red Cross in treating the cases and transferring others to hospitals in the city for treatment.

Away from Beirut, the Israeli military continued to conduct airstrikes across the country on Saturday.

Raids were constant throughout the day across the southern governorate of Nabatieh, killing nine people in total — the highest fatality rate recorded on Saturday by the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The ministry counted 23 people killed in a 24-hour period by Israeli attacks on Saturday, including five in the South Governorate, three in the Beqaa and four in the North Governorate. Casualties in Beirut were not included in the final toll, where correspondents have noted the difficulty of retrieving bodies from under the rubble of bombed buildings given the degree of damage and the frequency of the airstrikes.

A bombing overnight on a house in the coastal town of Jiyeh killed two people and injured around 30, according to the Health Ministry.

“There were children inside. Everyone knows that this is a civilian house,” said Ibrahim al-Hajj, the town leader, speaking to Mada Masr on Sunday. He said that around 10,000 displaced people have come to seek shelter in houses or schools allocated by the government for the displaced in Jiyeh, which lies south of Beirut.

Lebanon’s education minister announced on Sunday that the beginning of the school year would be postponed until November in light of the ongoing aggression on the country.

After the violent night in Beirut, bombing resumed again at around 9 am on Sunday, targeting Laylaki in Dahiyeh.

Early Sunday afternoon, Israel issued a new evacuation order, threatening to target the southern villages of Houla, Mays al-Jabal, Blida, Mahbib, Shaqra, Baraisht, Majdal Salm, Qabrikha, Kounine, Beit Yahoun, Jumayjimah, Tayri, Bani Hayyan, Tamriyeh, Tulin, Deir Siryan, Qusayr, Baflia, Jabal al-Adas, Bayad, Sarbin, Burj Rahhal, Ain Baal, Rashidiya, and Haniyeh.

The Israeli military spokesperson told the villages’ residents that they must “move immediately north of the Awali River” and must not “go south,” as “any movement south will put your life in danger.”

And as Israel continues to bomb areas across Lebanon, inflicting mass civilian casualties, fighting on the border between Hezbollah and the invading Israeli military continues.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Hezbollah stated that it forced Israeli troops attempting to invade the village of Blida in Marjayoun to retreat. The party’s press release said it had inflicted casualties among the Israeli ranks.

Hezbollah also sent a series of salvos toward the Manara settlement, striking soldiers that had amassed in the area.

On Sunday afternoon, Hezbollah carried out a number of operations targeting Israeli military infrastructure, including sending a squadron of suicide drones to attack the maintenance and rehabilitation base south of the city of Haifa and firing missiles at the Hadab-Yarine military site and the Margaliot and Shlomi settlements.

Having made little progress in its attempts to push forward, Israel is resorting to its air supremacy, bombing advanced positions in the south. Israeli warplanes bombed Rab al-Thalathine, the towns of Dibbin, Arnoun, Majdal Salm, Qabrikha, Barashit, Aita al-Shaab, and Yaroun. The Israeli military also shelled the towns of Alma al-Shaab, Naqoura, and Taybeh.

The Lebanese towns of Khiyam, Kafr Kila and Burj al-Malouk were also shelled overnight and throughout Sunday. Three staff from the Southern Lebanon Water Establishment in Taybeh were killed in the strikes.

Kafr Kila is where Hezbollah is clashing with Israeli troops attempting incursions into Lebanese land.

Israel also continues to target medical staff, which has forced many hospital staff to temporarily evacuate the border area. On Sunday, the Islamic Health Authority announced the martyrdom of three of its paramedics in raids targeting the authority’s centers in Joya, Majdal Zun and Ainata.

Israel media reported that 25 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Sunday afternoon, reporting that some were intercepted while others made impact.