Mass Evacuations in Beirut Amid Intensified Israeli Airstrikes

"...The ding of half a million phones, a pause and a collective gasp: in an instant, more than 500,000 people had been made homeless...."

"...Shooting in the air, panicked phone calls and honking filled the streets of Beirut as people began to flee...."

"...Thousands abandoned their cars and began the slow march to the sea, desperate to escape the Israeli bombs which they knew would soon fall on their homes, whether they were in them or not...."

"...By Friday, the usually vibrant area was a ghost town, the throngs of people replaced by rubble and fires from Israeli bombing...."

"...Family WhatsApp chats were filled with the infamous blue maps issued by the Israeli military spokesperson over X, more and more towns and neighbourhoods shaded in red by the hour...."

"...The circle was tightening, safety harder to find...."

"...War had returned to Lebanon before its residents had had time to rebuild from the last one...."

"...Israeli airstrikes on border villages and the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday added to the already heaping mounds of rubble from 2024...."

"...In Beirut, residents knew what was coming next...."

"...In the last war he had waited, and had been injured in the same airstrike that killed the former head of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah...."

"...This time he wanted to get ahead of the bombs...."

"...When the barrage started early on Friday, entire buildings were levelled and storefronts were blown in by the percussive force of the blasts...."

"...Residents across the capital city left their windows open to stop them shattering; the panes rattled throughout the morning with each of Israel’s 26 strikes...."

"...The destruction is significant. It seems deliberate. Entire buildings are being brought down...."

"...He added that some elderly people or those with mobility issues had not been able to evacuate and that, despite his entreaties, he had received no help from the Lebanese state in rescuing them...."

"...Outside the Shia-majority areas of south Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, where support for Hezbollah is common but not monolithic, hearts had hardened...."

"...Gone was the sympathy that was present during the last war in 2024 when Israel’s strikes seemed unprovoked...."

"...This time, in the eyes of many Lebanese, Hezbollah and its support base had brought it upon themselves...."

"...People viewed the displaced with suspicion, closing their doors with a justification that refugees could be secret members of Hezbollah and could invite destruction into their homes...."

"...Some Israeli airstrikes hit homes sheltering displaced people with links to Hezbollah, a strategy that one analyst said was designed to sow divisions in Lebanese society and isolate the Shia community...."

"...A strike on Tuesday on a hotel in Hazmieh, a Christian area south-east of Beirut, proved the point to many: the hotel staff had taken in displaced families before the strike...."

"...One landlord in Achrafieh, a primarily Christian area, described turning away a refugee from a Shia neighbourhood...."

"...He said his name was ‘Bob’, as if I couldn’t tell from his accent where he was from...."

"...Others raised the rent, taking advantage of the situation...."

"...One ad for a two-bedroom apartment demanded six months rent up front, $6,000 – far out of reach of most of Lebanon’s impoverished population...."

"...In the Christian areas of Beirut and Lebanon, life carried on normally...."

"...Nightclubs said they would still open on the weekend, though stickers would be placed on cameras and the events would be invitation-only, with one club marketing the party as a way to “blow off steam”...."

"...To all but Hezbollah’s most ardent supporters, the fight seemed unwinnable...."

"...As Hezbollah bragged that it had injured eight Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon on Friday, Israel razed entire buildings across the country...."

"...Israeli jets flew to Tehran and back, while the Jerusalem police tweeted a picture of a tortoise that was receiving treatment for a mild injury from the shrapnel of an intercepted Iranian missile...."

"...The bombs continued late into Friday night, one after the other...."