South Lebanon is currently witnessing a military escalation that is pushing thousands of innocent families into anxiety and grief.
Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have increased dramatically since the beginning of 2024, leading to an intensification of Israeli strikes, particularly on residential areas on the border.
But it is not all ! On 17 September 2024, a series of explosions rocked some neighbourhoods of the capital Beirut, the result of explosive devices such as pagers and walkie-talkies that were used to target Hezbollah members. The attacks were attributed to Israel and resulted in 37 deaths and thousands of injuries, especially around the American University of Beirut, where ambulances flocked to evacuate the wounded, putting pressure on already overstretched medical institutions.
This escalation was followed by an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb on 20 September, which led to the death of Ibrahim Aqeel, a senior Hezbollah official. In addition, 31 people died and dozens more disappeared under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
In their turn, the Israeli authorities justify these strikes as preventive measures, claiming that Hezbollah was planning an attack similar to that of Hamas in October 2023.
Current tensions are also attributed to a series of previous events, such as Iranian strikes on Israel during the summer of 2024. On 13 April, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard coordinated an attack with its regional allies, including Hezbollah, and fired rockets and drones at Israel and the Golan Heights. The attack was in response to Israeli attacks in Syria and the deaths of a number of Iranian leaders and their allies.
What is worrying is the redeployment of some Israeli forces northwards on the border with Lebanon following the relative calm on the Gaza front, raising the spectre of a 2006-style ground intervention.
At dawn on 23 September 2024, events accelerated. The Israeli Air Force launched the “Northern Arrows Operation”, targeting, in its words, “Hezbollah terrorists”. Israel rained a barrage of missiles and bombs on South Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, targeting what it considers “the strongholds of the Iranian-backed movement that regularly shells its own territory in support of its ally in Gaza”, after advising the Lebanese to stay away from dangerous areas.
Israel targeted the villages of Baalbek, Dours and Bazaliya with three strikes, as well as the towns of Nabi Sheet and Badawi. In total, Israeli forces targeted 1,600 targets in Lebanon, potentially linked to Hezbollah and its weapons warehouse.
“The Israelis started bombing our village at dawn,” says Jawad, a resident of the Lebanese village of Burj al-Shamali, “There were still bodies under the rubble when we left, even children’s bodies. We were very scared.”
The medical infrastructure, exhausted by the economic crisis and the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion, was unable to cope with the large number of wounded. Dr Jamal Badran from the Popular Relief Hospital in Nabatieh told AFP: “I can’t walk between the stretchers at the American Hospital to the East of Beirut, where the wounded are bleeding while others are coming out of the operating rooms with air tubes on their noses. We were stumbling over bodies wrapped like mummies with their eyes covered in gauze. Families sat on the floor with the cloths of their abayas draped like a gloomy shroud in the emergency corridor. It’s a disaster, it’s a massacre. The strikes don’t stop, they bombed us as we were picking up the wounded.”
The tensions led to the displacement of thousands of civilian families on both sides, including around 100,000 Lebanese and 60,000 Israelis.
On the night of 23 September, Hezbollah retaliated by firing around ten rockets from Lebanon into Israel’s Hamakim region, targeting the army’s ‘main warehouse’ in the area and a military base. The scenario was repeated on Tuesday 24 September, with around fifty rockets fired from Lebanon towards several cities in the Galilee and around Haifa, but the Israeli air defence system intercepted most of the rockets.
Lebanese families are experiencing a sense of isolation and despair. While some insist they will return home, others wonder if they will ever see their homes standing after being bombed.
Lebanon has been plunged into a spiral of violence and civilians are the biggest losers. Despite calls from non-governmental organisations and religious leaders for a ceasefire and urgent humanitarian aid, the situation remains highly volatile.
These events emphasise the need for urgent de-escalation and the need to protect civilians.
The organization SOS Chrétiens d’Orient has been following the developments of this crisis for a year and is currently assessing the needs of the displaced people. Some 70 food parcels have been urgently distributed to families in Alma al-Shaab, and another 100 will soon be distributed to families in Rachaya al-Fakhar.
