Just a month ago, the bustling streets of south Beirut were packed with traffic, families strolling and young people in cafes, but now silence dominates the abandoned Hezbollah bastion, broken only by the sound of Israeli bombs.
Escalating Israeli attacks since late September, after nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border exchanges, have reduced much of the Lebanese capital’s once densely packed southern suburbs to rubble and driven many of its residents to flee.
Resisting the stench of rotting flesh that reeked from the destroyed buildings, several young men stood guard dressed in black civilian clothes and occasionally circled the ruins on their motorcycles.
They watched the odd car and the handful of displaced residents who came by on foot, quickly checking their apartment or gathering some belongings before returning to safety.
“The young people told me not to stay too long because the drones are constantly flying over and could attack at any time,” said Mohammed, 32, who was on a short visit home to pick up more clothes.
Giving his first name only for security reasons, he said he first left on September 27, days after Israel’s intense air campaign against Lebanon.
That day, massive Israeli strikes killed elusive Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the heart of the Iranian-backed stronghold of south Beirut, demolishing several residential buildings and spreading fears of more violence.
“We left in a hurry, thinking we would never see our house again,” Mohammed said, adding that his neighbors had also fled.
The building still stood, but many others were damaged or destroyed.
Attacks on infrastructure
Cracks criss-crossed nearby buildings as torn asphalt and burst pipes spewed sewage and tap water.
Generators, which have long compensated for daily power outages after five years of economic crisis, were also smashed to pieces.
“About 320 buildings were destroyed in Beirut and its suburbs” in less than a month of war, Mona Fawaz of the Beirut Urban Lab told AFP.
The devastation has surpassed the damage caused by Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006, said Fawaz, who records cases of “urbicide,” the destruction of cities in conflict, now focusing on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
She accused Israel of “deliberately targeting what allows life to go on,” including vital infrastructure unrelated to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has completely rebuilt southern Beirut based on existing town planning plans from before the 2006 war, which displaced around 100,000 people from the area.
During this 33-day war, “surveys listed 1,332 heavily damaged multi-story residential buildings, of which 281 were completely razed to the ground” in an area of about 20 square kilometers (eight square miles), Fawaz said.
The Burj al-Barajneh neighborhood, which remained unscathed in 2006, was this time severely damaged in the bombing.
Childhood memories
Once again, families from South Beirut are forced to seek refuge elsewhere in the country or abroad.
Many live in rented apartments or with relatives, while others are crammed into schools turned into shelters.
Hassan, 37, grew up in the Mrayeh neighborhood in southern Beirut, where Israeli jets attacked Hashem Saffieddin, considered Nasrallah’s most likely successor.
Despite the bloodshed, he said Mraijeh will always remind him of his “friends, the games we played as children, the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning, the conversations of the neighbors and the Ramadan celebrations”.
The supermarket where he shopped was in ruins, and nearby shops, schools and buildings were also reduced to rubble.
Hassan, who also asked to be identified only by a first name, was told his favorite record store was no more.
With the war showing no signs of abating, greater losses are almost certain.
“We are afraid to come back after the war, only to find out how many of our friends have died, like in 2006,” Hassan said with a sigh.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published by a syndicated channel.)
