As Israel's invasion begins, Lebanon's displaced shelter in streets with 'nowhere to go'

BEIRUT — Heavy bombardments from Israel on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in the past week — amid ground raids kicking off in southern Lebanon early Tuesday — forced many people to flee their homes and left thousands with no place to go. In downtown Beirut, displaced families sleep on mattresses or on chunks of Styrofoam sprawled out on black asphalt. Others seek shelter underneath a nearby mosque, clustered together with their hastily packed bags and a few belongings.

On the evening of Sept. 27, Israel pummeled Dahiyeh in the southern suburbs of Beirut with airstrikes throughout the night and into the morning. One airstrike reduced six residential buildings to rubble, killing at least six and injuring 91, although the final death toll will likely be higher.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, senior commander Ali Karaki and several other leaders of the party were among those killed. Many in the country are mourning the death of Nasrallah, whose followers revered him as almost a fatherlike figure.

Early Tuesday morning local time, Israel’s military announced that “limited, localized and targeted” ground raids had begun.

Israel has significantly escalated its attacks on what it says are Hezbollah's military targets. In the past two weeks, over 1,000 people have been killed and more than 6,000 injured in Israeli attacks, including civilians. The strikes have hit homes, medical centers, ambulances and cars with people fleeing across the country, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

In a period of just 24 hours on Sept. 29-30, the Israeli bombardments across Lebanon killed at least 105 people and injured 359 others. In the early hours of the 30th, an Israeli airstrike hit central Beirut, leveling another apartment building. The Palestinian leftist faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that one of its members and two of its commanders were killed in the attack.

Another Israeli airstrike on the Palestinian Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre killed a Hamas commander. The Palestinian group said in a statement on Monday that Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, Hamas’ commander in Lebanon and a member of the group’s leadership abroad, was killed in the strike alongside his son, daughter and wife. 

‘We don’t have anywhere to go’

Awla Karmo, a mother of eight, woke up on the asphalt of Martyrs' Square in downtown Beirut for a third morning on the 29th. She told Al-Monitor that she fled her home in Dahiyeh last Thursday. “We don’t have any money; we don’t have anywhere to go,” Karmo said.

She added that during the 2006 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel, her family could afford to flee to Syria, but now she has no safe place to go but the streets. Poverty rates in Lebanon have tripled over the past decade amid an economic crisis, according to the World Bank. 

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, estimated on Sunday during a cabinet meeting that up to 1 million people might now be displaced due to the war. Unlike Israel, the Lebanese government — whose coffers have nearly dried up after over three years of economic turmoil — is not able to afford accommodation in hotels for displaced families. 

Many of the over 360 shelters the government has opened are old warehouses or schools, which were already overcrowded and underfunded before Israel’s massive military escalation last week. Now many are full and beyond capacity.

Some grassroots organizations and charities are delivering food to those sleeping on the streets in downtown Beirut, but it is not nearly enough, Karmo said. She cannot afford milk or diapers for her youngest — a baby just a few months old. “I want to buy milk for my baby, but I can’t. It’s very hard,” she said.

Mourning Nasrallah

Shock and grief overwhelmed many in Lebanon following the assassination of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah. Some screamed in grief; others cried, and some shouted angrily when the news spread of his death in the afternoon. Others refused to believe he was killed, chanting in the streets “Sayyed [Nasrallah] still lives!”

One resident of Dahiyeh who is a supporter of Hezbollah told Al-Monitor she was mourning Nasrallah’s death. “We are hurting a lot because of losing Sayyed,” she said, requesting anonymity. “But we’re certain that there are 100 people like Sayyed [to replace him]. Hopefully it will be okay."

On Sept. 22, Al-Monitor met the same young woman at a funeral for one of Hezbollah’s top commanders, Ibrahim Akil, who was killed two days earlier in an Israeli air raid in Dahiyeh. She was wearing a sash with the yellow and green colors of the Hezbollah flag, and she carried one photo of Akil and another of her uncle, a fighter she said was “martyred” in Syria.

Some Syrians celebrated Nasrallah’s death with fireworks and parades in the street. Hezbollah, along with Syrian government troops, has been accused by rights groups of committing mass war crimes against civilians.

However, the Lebanese group is seen as an important resistance force among many Palestinians and Lebanese. At Akil’s funeral, the young woman expressed her hope and support for Hezbollah. “The resistance is here to stay, and his eminence Sayyed will remain respected by everyone,” she said.

Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, told Al-Monitor that Nasrallah’s death is a “great hit for Hezbollah on many levels, especially its morale.”

“Nasrallah is one of the historic leaders of the resistance and symbolized optimism for his followers that they’d be victorious whatever happened,” Hage Ali said. “His mythlike status kept the organization and its wider base together like glue,” he added, noting that Nasrallah’s death may “open the door” for diverging views within the group.

‘We want to protect ourselves’

Tailing the procession at Akil’s funeral was an elderly woman from Lebanon's border village of Kfarkela.

“[Israel] collapsed our buildings and killed our children, our women and our brothers. They made us leave our homes,” she told Al-Monitor, requesting anonymity.

The woman said that an Israeli airstrike in December had flattened her home and that she'd been living in Dahiyeh with relatives since then. “I am in pain because they made us homeless, but I am not scared,” she said.

The airstrike in December was not the first time she had to flee her village and head north. She also fled to the capital during Israel’s invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.

“In 1982, we came running without shoes,” she recounted. “They killed our children in front of us.”

During the 2006 war, however, she remained in Kfarkela. “[Israel] cut our food, water, electricity and phones. We picked the leaves from the trees to eat,” she said.

As for why she supports Hezbollah, the elderly woman stated, “We want to protect ourselves.”

‘Myth of invincible Hezbollah reduced to rubble’

The Lebanese group — which was seen as the most powerful military and political force in the country — is trying to recuperate from severe setbacks, having lost several of its key leaders and huge portions of its arsenal.

Hage Ali said that “the myth of an invincible Hezbollah,” which helped it expand power in the country, “has been largely reduced to rubble in the past two weeks.”

“Hezbollah, or what’s left of it, wants to retain its position and continue the course of war, but it all depends on their ability to get back on their feet given the heavy losses in the leadership,” he added.

To restore that image, Hage Ali asserted, the group would have to pull off a large attack — something he said “seems unlikely” to happen.

Hezbollah has so far not made any significant moves to escalate against Israel. Hours after the heavy airstrikes that killed Nasrallah, the group launched some 65 rockets at towns in northern Israel — similar to its past attacks since fighting erupted on the Lebanon-Israel border on Oct. 8, 2023.

Hezbollah fired a missile at Mossad headquarters near Tel Aviv on Sept. 25, but Israel’s air defense systems intercepted it.

“This is not a war between two sides, this is basically one side chipping at the other,” Hage Ali said.  

‘Israel needs a war’

Prior to Tuesday morning’s ground raids beginning, Israeli troops had been massing along the border. Israeli military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi announced last week that preparations were underway for a potential ground invasion of Lebanon, and on Monday Israeli media reported that Israel's security cabinet had approved plans for the "next phase" in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has on multiple occasions shut down the idea of a cease-fire.

“Israel is trying to get a tally of casualties and quality targets and [cause] general mayhem, destruction, death and devastation, at the end of which it will be able to declare victory. … ,” Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg told Al-Monitor.

“Israel has been promising its displaced northern residents a war since Oct. 7,” Goldberg said. “Israel needs a war.”

Hage Ali said that Hezbollah may even benefit if Israel invades, as it could allow the group to “reemerge in the long term.”

‘We want the war to end’

Meanwhile, thousands of Lebanese civilians are stuck underneath Israel’s bombs and missiles. Although many have fled their homes and villages under fire, not everyone has been able to leave.

Among those staying behind were Mustafa Sayyed and his wife and 11 children, in the city of Tyre, some 19 kilometers (12 miles) from the border with Israel. Israeli airstrikes pounded the city on Sept. 23 and continued to hit nearby areas throughout the week.

Sayyed, who has been displaced since last year, said the bombardment lasted around six hours. “Everyone was screaming. They targeted two buildings next to us; the whole building was shaking. It became like Gaza,” he told Al-Monitor. He said the intense airstrikes have continued around the shelter throughout the week.

Sayyed has been living in the shelter with his family in Tyre after having fled his home in the border village of Beit Leif on Oct. 17, 2023, amid intensified cross-border shelling by Israel and Hezbollah. Al-Monitor previously met Sayyed and his family at the shelter in February, when conditions were already bad. Things have worsened, he said, as Israeli bombardments intensify around him and the shelter now hosts three times the number of people.

Sayyed cannot flee north because he has no money for gas. “I will stay put. I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

“We are tired of living in the same room and sharing a bathroom, having little water and no washing machine,” Sayyed said. “We want the war to end. We want to rest. We can’t take it anymore.”