Thursday, October 3, 2024, 18:43
Beirut is under the shock of the Israeli bombings, which this Thursday caused nine deaths and fourteen wounded in the center of the Lebanese capital. This is the second time that the Hebrew army attacks inside the city, although its inhabitants are becoming familiar with the roar of the explosions and the shaking of the ground after the aviation has dropped its missiles once in two weeks. dozens of times in the Dahiye district, where the Defense Forces locate Hezbollah’s stronghold
The attack, carried out at night, caused extensive damage to a building in the Al-Bashura area that, according to the National News Agency, housed a center of the Islamic Health Authority. The explosion destroyed several floors. Most of the victims are paramedics and other members of the rescue services. The bodies of several of them were thrown into the street.
Israel has subsequently reported that it warned of the attack before it occurred and that it was a “selective operation” against an apartment block where there was supposedly an Intelligence cell of the militia. The armed action would have killed several agents and destroyed information and material from Hezbollah’s main spy base in Beirut, according to this version.
Last Monday, the army also destroyed a floor of a building in the Cola neighborhood where it indicated that three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were hiding. Lebanese media have ruled out the link of the Health Authority center, affiliated with Hezbollah, with terrorist activities.
Many Beirutians remain in a state of shock. The building is located in the heart of the city, but the Israeli army has also risked a lot in this bombing. Ellugarb is located a few meters from the Lebanese Parliament, the prime minister’s office and other government headquarters. In the adjacent streets there are several diplomatic headquarters, as well as shops and Administration offices. The Cervantes Institute is located five hundred meters away. Its personnel were precisely evacuated yesterday by the two planes sent from Spain. Local employees have been sent home and classes remain suspended.
«No one is calm. We know that the Israeli planes, voluntarily or due to a tactical error, can drop their bombs on us,” explains a resident of the center to a local media. The explosion was of such magnitude that thousands of people went out to the windows or took to the streets in anguish in all parts of Beirut. Ambulances and firefighters gathered in Al-Bashura. In a small nearby cemetery, teams collected the remains of several victims thrown dozens of meters by the impact.
The terror has also increased as the hours have passed, as the possibility has taken shape that Israel had used white phosphorus bombs in the attack. The Government of Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet responded to the complaint from the Lebanese authorities. This substance is prohibited by the Geneva Convention, although it is a rule systematically circumvented in wars. In Ukraine and Russia, both sides have accused each other of using it against the enemy. Human Rights Watch assures that the Israelis have used it in bombings on Lebanese soil up to seventeen times in the last year.
Thousands of other Beirutians spent the entire night awake this Thursday in Dahiye, where the fighter-bombers made several passes to predictably destroy Hezbollah’s Intelligence headquarters, headquarters and surveillance equipment. The leader of this organization, Nasrallah, was assassinated in these southern neighborhoods of Beirut last week. The bomb craters remind us of this every day. That same Wednesday, all the inhabitants knew that no one would sleep when the Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee asked them through the media to move more than half a kilometer away from the outskirts.
The exodus
Attacks of this nature have also extended to the southern Lebanese border, where there have been orders to evacuate another 25 towns. With these, there are close to a hundred populations evicted in four days, which has generated a tremendous movement of displaced people towards the north. Spurred on by the terror of an offensive that has killed 2,000 people since last week, 65 in the last 24 hours, 1.2 million citizens have left their homes for an uncertain future. Ahead are the facilities and camps that can be enabled. The UN describes this objective as a priority. Left behind are some houses that, given the virulence of the attacks, may never be recovered and may be reduced to rubble.
In the midst of all this are also the Lebanese suburbs to the south of the capital, regions and urban areas densely populated by different groups and religions that live every day scanning the sky in search of Israel’s reconnaissance planes. Traffic-clogged roads are usually deserted. The newspaper ‘Al-Akhbar’ has timed the journey on the so-called road of Martyr Hadi Nasrallah. Where ten days ago traveling four kilometers took an hour, now “it takes just a few minutes.” Few venture onto open streets and highways where an air raid could occur at any moment. Fighter-bombers and armed drones are feared as much. Many stories have reached Lebanon of militants and officials from Hamas, Hezbollah or the Syrian Islamic Jihad who have been blown up in their cars with a single shot from a drone.
There are many neighborhoods in these towns where the damage from old military operations and more current raids is still clearly visible in the buildings, shops and avenues. Although, as ‘Al-Akhbar’ highlights, until now they had not lost their street life.
In the mornings is the time of greatest traffic. Many people displaced to the north return to check if their homes are still standing or to collect food, clothing and other belongings. There are fewer businesses left open in the suburbs. In the last week, many owners have loaded vans with the material from their stores and taken it to other, safer places so as not to lose its value. Other establishments and businesses continue to operate, although at dusk they avoid turning on the lights. “We opened our houses to control them and emptied the contents of the refrigerators,” says Fadia, who has found temporary shelter in Al-Kafa’at. “It seems that the stay will be long, so we increase the provisions and clothing we can take with us.”
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