Thousands displaced in Beirut after around 30 Israeli air raids in 10 hours, strikes ongoing

On Friday evening, some people left the southern suburbs of Beirut immediately after feeling the ten consecutive airstrikes conducted by Israel rip through streets between Borj al-Barajneh and Haret Hreik.

“The glass in my house was broken and the walls cracked,” says Ghada Hazouri, a single mother resident of the Lailaki area who says she left straight away, spending an hour in the streets, uncertain where to turn with her daughter and son, who has special needs.

Others would leave later, abandoning their belongings as it became clear that the unprecedented attack was only the beginning of a night that would see Israel continue to pummel sites across Dahiyeh.

The Israeli military transformed what was a densely populated residential area into a hollowed-out landscape of rubble and charred remains of people’s apartments, shops, cars and offices within the span of 24 hours. Thousands of people were forced out of their homes and communities, scattered across the capital.

Friday's airstrike on Dahiyeh was unprecedented. Israel used bunker-busting bombs, according to a statement by its military radio. The blast left a crater at least 20 meters deep in the neighborhood, with initial reports from the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar channel saying that at least four residential buildings were completely felled in the one accessible part of the area that was targeted.

Search and rescue operations were hampered by the degree of damage to the streets, preventing civil defense equipment and vehicles from accessing the area. People were digging with their hands to retrieve bodies, according to Al-Manar’s correspondents.

An initial count published by the Lebanese Health Ministry indicated that six people were killed in the barrage, though it stressed that the figure only reflected those sent to ministry-affiliated hospitals.

The sound of the first bombardment was audible across the city. For Fatima, in the adjacent neighborhood of Chiyah, it felt like it was on top of her. "I thought this was it — they bombed our building," she says.

She says she was having coffee with her aunt and mother when the sound of multiple rockets rang out at once. "We started running around the house, not knowing where to go or how to find out where they bombed," she recalls.

The three-story block shook wildly, she says, and given that it was built some time ago, Fatima feared it wouldn’t withstand such powerful blasts. Rabih, who lived in nearby Msharafieh, says that phone lines stopped working in the immediate aftermath of the strike, adding to the sense of terror.

With no car, Fatima and her family felt trapped. Her sister Jawhar, who lived on the outskirts of Beirut, was their best chance to escape the targeted area, but the roads remained too dangerous for her to drive back.

Her nephew called to say he would pick them up and take them north out of Beirut, and Fatima and her elderly mother and aunt were out of the house within 30 minutes, leaving a pot of freshly cooked rice and beans on the stove.

"All we cared about was exiting the area. We didn’t even take clothes or possessions with us," Fatima says. They managed to leave Dahiyeh after some men worked to clear the roads, allowing cars to escape.

Others who stayed in the neighborhood were still in shock from the aftermath of the first barrage of rockets when the Occupation military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, ordered, starting around 10:00 pm, the evacuation of several areas in the suburbs because they would be targeted by airstrikes, claiming they were located near “Hezbollah interests.”

Dahiyeh, its outskirts at Hadath, Choueifat and Lailaki, were subjected to a barrage of overnight missiles that media sources tracking the night of airstrikes say exceeded 30 aerial raids in just 10 hours.

Thousands of families who fled the relentless bombardment spent the night in Beirut’s public open spaces — along the corniche at Raouche and Hamra, on the sand at Ain al-Mreisseh, in parking lots, and on the steps of the mosque in Sahet al-Shohadaa.

Salam, with seven family members, including two young children, describes fleeing Msharafieh to stay for a night filled with tears and worry inside a barbershop in the Hamra neighborhood before departing Beirut to seek accommodation in Tripoli.

Some sought shelter in schools deployed for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced in Lebanon since Israel began in October to target the country’s south due to Hezbollah’s offensive on northern areas of Israeli-held territory in solidarity with Palestine.

“I took a taxi and headed to Madame Aoun Public School in Furn al-Chebbak because someone told me that it receives displaced people,” explains Hazouri.

Most public shelters are poorly equipped, lacking space or basic necessities like mattresses and cooking utensils to accommodate the surge in the number of people displaced due to Israeli forces’ daily airstrikes across the country in its escalation since September 23.

“There is no more humiliation and insult to dignity than where we are now. It is over and enough. I will not say more than that. We are the living dead,” says Hazouri.

Hadi Abdullah likewise expresses the difficulty of being displaced with his entire family, including his wife, six children, mother, sister and her family, from the Abyad neighborhood parallel to Haret Hreik.

The area was subject to an air raid a few days ago, before it was again targeted in the early hours of Saturday morning. The family is seeking shelter in Jounieh as all of the sites closer to their home are full.

“Displacement is not an escape, but rather an entry into a calamity,” says Abdullah. “Perhaps we can get some water to drink and some food, but how do we sleep?” 

Others are yet to find shelter. Hussein Yateem, who left his home in Marija on Saturday afternoon, says that he, his wife and three children were forced to use their car, like many others, as a place to sleep. They parked their car in downtown Beirut and spent the night in it.

Ahmed Atrisi, 31, says he fled the Borj al-Barajneh area at around 1 am on Saturday morning after the Israeli military spokesman said the area would be bombed. He quickly left with his parents, wife and two children without being able to take a single piece of clothing. He says he spent the night in Ain al-Mreisseh.

Speaking to Mada Masr, he says he is planning to take the risk of going back home — although he doesn’t know whether the house is still standing — to bring essential items, as the family will not be returning.