The Fear of Becoming a Number After Witnessing the Beirut Strikes
On April 8, 2026, Israeli strikes across Lebanon killed at least 357 people and wounded over 1,200 others, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. That day, the U.S.-Iran ceasefire was supposed to also mean a ceasefire in Lebanon — but Israel launched a fire belt across the country instead.
Photographer Ahmad Chihadeh, reporting from Beirut, gave his testimony of the chaos that ensued in the capital after the Zionist enemy’s fire belt of strikes earlier that day, and from the scene of the Tallet el-Khayyat attack later that night. His voice messages were translated and edited for clarity.
Chihadeh’s account is one of three testimonies The Public Source has collected from photographers on the ground documenting Israel’s terrorist aggression on Lebanon on “Black Wednesday.”
Location: Ain el-Mraisseh
At 6 p.m., on his way from Corniche el-Mazraa to Hamra, Chihadeh sent us his first voice note:
I was downtown when the airstrikes happened. In a very short time, my phone started blowing up: everyone was calling me because they knew I was in Beirut. I was calling my brother to check where he was, especially since I saw smoke near my house. I live near Clemenceau, close to the strike that hit Ain el-Mraisseh, so I headed there immediately.
The building had completely collapsed; there was nothing left. People were crying. That building was already structurally weak, and some of the nearby buildings looked badly damaged — you can see it clearly in the photos. People were in shock because of the intensity of the strikes in Beirut.
Smoke from an Israeli strike hitting Corniche el-Mazraa, seen from Beirut’s downtown, amid one of the largest waves of Israeli bombardment on the capital of Beirut since the 1982 Zionist invasion. Beirut, Lebanon. April 8, 2026. (Ahmad Chihadeh/The Public Source)
Five minutes later, we realized it was part of a series of strikes happening across Lebanon. We started checking up on each other, trying to find out who was safe, what had happened, and why. I was one of the people receiving those calls because of the kind of work I do and where I usually am.
Some people were breaking down in the street. It was chaos. The scene reminded me of the pager explosions — that same level of panic, the sound of fear among people in the streets. Honestly, it was terrifying.
A massacre in Corniche el-Mazraa. Civil Defense teams, alongside other rescue organizations, work together to rescue people trapped beneath the rubble. Beirut, Lebanon. April 8, 2026. (Ahmad Chihadeh/The Public Source)
I heard some people say they stood with the resistance and that none of this would scare them. Others were in shock, especially since there had been talk of a ceasefire. How could something like this happen when we’re supposedly included in the ceasefire?
There is deep sadness, shock, and disorientation among people. They were given a sense of safety and told there was a ceasefire — only for Israel to carry out one of the most violent attacks since the war began. It’s a terrifying message, if I’m being honest, and everyone is asking the same question, “What happens now?”
End of recording.
Location: Tallet el-Khayyat
At 10 a.m. the next morning, April 9, on his way to Corniche el-Mazraa to document the aftermath of the strikes the day prior, Chihadeh sent a second voice note:
The scene in Tallet el-Khayyat didn’t shock me; I was expecting to see something like that. What struck me most was a house in one of the upper floors of a building, where you could see a wardrobe with shirts hanging inside, still wrapped in plastic.
When I left the site, all I could think about was that each one of those shirts had once been worn by someone — shown to someone they loved: a wife, a mother, a sister.
Even the decorations inside homes — how happy a mother might feel about the way her house is decorated. All of that disappears just one moment.
I saw Civil Defense teams struggling to lift the heavy concrete; they were suffering. It reminded me of people in Gaza, who don’t have the means to clear the rubble and dig with their bare hands. I saw how patient people were, waiting for news about their relatives, waiting to know if they were dead or alive. There are still people under the rubble in Gaza, and even in parts of the South from this war.
What scares me is how a person suddenly becomes just a number — all of their memories, everything beautiful and ugly. They stop being someone remembered by others. They become just a number.
End of recording.
Share this page