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On the ground in Beirut – a ‘city under siege’: The sound of the bombings is terrifying and there is no end in sight
Enormous explosions and thundering claps of sound reverberated around the Lebanese capital overnight, in what was probably the most violent night yet. They continued into the early hours.
It’s hard to encapsulate just how loud and frightening the Israeli bombings are in Beirut. The sound causes sheer terror. The shockwaves even some kilometres away can be felt shuddering through the buildings and ground.
People run to windows to check how close they might be. And the sound of the Israeli drones flying low and insistently across the city has become a pre-warning and another terrifying indicator of where the bombs might fall next.
The Lebanese Economy minister has called it “a city under siege”.
The Israeli forces spent the night concentrating on targeting the southern suburbs again. The skies of the capital lit up in certain areas as enormous orange mushroom clouds enveloped buildings and huge sparks flew. It is terrifying. Horrifying. Devastating.
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Pic: AP/Hussein Malla
Beirut has utterly transformed in a matter of days. A bustling city centre is now crowded with people living rough, informal camps set up on pavements everywhere. The roads are gridlocked with extra traffic as families circle with whatever they can pile into their cars, searching for a place to camp or find some sort of shelter.
The official shelters in schools, universities, and designated government buildings are now in their hundreds and full to overflowing. A lot of roundabouts and road junctions are now filled with families camped on patches of grass; some have taken to sleeping on the public beaches.
The city is full up.
Nightclubs have been turned into emergency housing for those who have fled their homes from further south nearer the Israeli border – who now find themselves cowering in terror as Israeli jets make multiple air raids throughout the night.
The Israeli military has been issuing “warnings” on a daily, nightly basis and this causes fear and terror in itself.
Dahieh – the southern suburb area most targeted – still has a Hezbollah presence. It is known as a Hezbollah stronghold, but it is worth repeating that it is also usually home to tens of thousands of others who are not affiliated with the militant group, which is proscribed in the UK and US.
Difficult questions to answer
Pic: AP/Bilal Hussein
It is an area with a usual population of around 600,000 – so big I had to check and double-check the figure after being questioned about the size by colleagues. The figure is actually a bit old so it was probably, pre-war, much larger.
There are still people there, as well as Hezbollah fanatics. The many people we’ve spoken to tell us they are understandably nervous about leaving their homes with nothing to go to and uncertainty about when they’ll be back. So many have said to us: “But where would I go? What would I do? All I own and have is here – why would I leave it all?”
These are very difficult questions to answer.
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The Israeli forces insist they are targeting Hezbollah military structures and weapons stores, as well as the militant group’s political and leadership structure.
There seems increasing likelihood that the man most touted to replace the recently assassinated leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is now also dead.
Several media outlets have quoted Lebanese security sources saying the group had lost contact with Hasham Safieddine – who hadn’t even yet been officially named as Nasrallah’s successor.
But with the pounding of airstrikes now on a nightly basis and often stretching into the day, the Lebanese feel they are being targeted as a population.
“It feels like collective punishment,” is very often the refrain. Time and again, ordinary people ask us: “Why are WE being hit? Why have we lost our family home?”
Pic: AP/Hussein Malla
The Lebanese government appears to be a bystander in all this, unable to exert diplomatic or political muscle while the Lebanese army is dwarfed in size and power by Hezbollah fighters and weaponry, and the United Nations – which has “peacekeepers” along the Blue Line demarking the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon – is confined to its bases and unable to patrol.
With the death toll already surpassing that of 34 days of war in 2006, it looks most definitely like this is going to be a lot worse in terms of casualties, never mind the level of utter destruction being wrought throughout the country. Yet Hezbollah continues to fire rockets, volleys of them sometimes, into northern Israel, and fight Israeli troops on the ground.
Read more:
What is Hezbollah and how powerful is its military?
‘We have had 40 ambulances destroyed’
Lebanese analyst and Hezbollah expert Amal Saad has said for some time, along with many others, that there is unlikely a scenario in which Hezbollah can be beaten militarily. And now Iran is very much involved too.
Michel Helou, secretary general of the National Bloc, a secular political party, said this morning on X: “Beirut just lived one of its worst nights. More than thirty strikes. Total silence in the international community.”
The UN has said Lebanon’s health system is “on the brink of collapsing”. Doctors and emergency workers are telling us in their droves how scared and terrorised they are and how they believe they are being specifically targeted.
The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy has expressed alarm at the increasing reports of health facilities and emergency workers being attacked.
And still, there is no end in sight.